Shell subsidiary to pay $2.2M fine for 2016 Gulf oil spill

NEW ORLEANS

A subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell has agreed to pay a $2.2 million civil fine to the federal government to settle charges that the company violated the Clean Water Act by spilling 1,900 barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico in May 2016 when a subsea pipeline cracked at the company’s Green Canyon oil field.

Shell Offshore’s fine, announced in the Federal Register on Friday, will be paid after the expiration of a 30-day comment period, NOLA.com/The Times-Picayune reported. The money will be deposited in the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, which is used to pay for oil-spill cleanups.

The new fine is in addition to $3.9 million the company agreed to pay to state and federal agencies in July to settle natural resource damage charges stemming from the spill. About $3.5 million of that settlement will be used for natural-resource restoration projects, with the rest aimed at repaying the agencies’ costs in responding to the spill.