Shortly before Thanksgiving in 2010, the leaders of the commission President Obama had appointed to investigate the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico sat down in the Oval Office to brief him.

After listening to their findings about the BP accident and the safety of deepwater drilling, the president abruptly changed the subject.

“Where are you coming out on the offshore Arctic?” he asked.

A trial to apportion blame and damages for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster will now start in 2013 after the New Orleans judge hearing the case scheduled a new start date.

The delay is a boost for BP BP.LN -3.11% PLC, which is facing billions of dollars in fines from the U.S. government for its part in the incident. Federal and state authorities had pressed for a summer trial, arguing that damages payments from the responsible parties were needed to speed up Gulf Coast restoration efforts.

The U.S. government said a trial to assign blame and damages among BP Plc and others over the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill should not be delayed until after a hearing over a $7.8 billion settlement of private party claims.

BP has asked U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier in New Orleans to delay any trial over the spill until after he holds a Nov. 8 fairness hearing over the settlement of more than 125,000 economic, property and medical claims.

The U.S. Justice Department broke new ground in the case against BP for causing the worst oil spill in the country's history when it brought criminal charges against a BP engineer for obstructing justice by deleting communications regarding the true size of the spill. The engineer, Kurt Mix (51), has been arrested.

On April 20, 2010, BP's Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico suffered a major explosion that killed 11 workers and went on to spew close to 62,000 barrels of oil per day into the Gulf, causing unprecedented damage to the surrounding environment and marine life.

Shrimp processors have asked a federal judge to delay preliminary approval of BP Plc's proposed settlement of economic damage claims from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, arguing that it is unfair to parts of the shrimp industry.

The American Shrimp Processors Association said the accord, which calls for BP to pay $2.3 billion in seafood claims, favors shrimp harvesters and boat captains at the expense of shrimp docks, processors and others it represents.

The estimated multibillion-dollar settlement between BP and lawyers representing individual and business plaintiffs in the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill was fleshed out on Wednesday in hundreds of pages of motions and exhibits.

The broad outlines of the agreement in principle reached last month, including an estimated $7.8 billion in payments for economic loss and medical claims, are unchanged in the papers filed in Federal District Court in New Orleans on Wednesday.

The Attorney General for the State of Florida has asked a federal court to delay granting preliminary approval of BP Plc's $7.8 billion settlement with businesses and individuals suing over the massive 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Attorney General Pamela Bondi, representing her constituents, said in a filing in Louisiana federal court on Friday that there is not enough information available about the settlement terms.

BP Plc will gain access to U.S. government documents that may shed light on the size of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a crucial issue in determining the oil company's liability.

According to a Wednesday court filing, the government agreed to produce the documents after BP had accused it two weeks ago of unfairly withholding them because they were privileged.

BP has said the documents may show that an August 2010 estimate of 4.9 million barrels of oil spilled, of which about 800,000 barrels were cleaned up, is too high.

PARIS: The European Space Agency said on Thursday it had lost contact with Envisat, the biggest Earth-monitoring satellite in history. Designed to operate for only five years, Envisat was launched in March 2002, carrying 10 instruments to monitor the planet's oceans, ice, land and atmosphere. The giant 8.2-tonne, 10.5-metre (34.1-foot) craft carried on working for a decade, racking up a total of 2.25 billion kilometres (1.4 billion miles), or more than 50,000 orbits, ESA said.