2nd UPDATE: BP Says It Won't Issue Further Dividends This Year; Agrees To $20B Fund

16th Jun 2010 20:05

(Adds comments from BP Chairman.) By Jared A. Favole Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--BP Plc (BP, BP.LN) said Wednesday it won't issue further dividends this year and agreed to set aside $20 billion to help pay for claims as a result of the Gulf oil disaster. BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg made the dividend disclosure after a meeting with President Barack Obama. In recent days, BP had come under pressure to halt dividend payments as it continued scrambling to halt the Gulf spill. Saying BP will look after the people of the Gulf coast, Svanberg said he wanted to apologize to those affected by an oil disaster he acknowledged should have never happened. He said the company would conduct its own probe of what caused the catastrophe. Obama called the meeting "constructive" and said BP voluntarily agreed to set aside an additional $100 million for workers who lost their jobs as a result of a deep-water drilling moratorium imposed by Obama. Obama said the $20 billion is not a cap, and added that BP will pay the full costs of the clean up including environmental damage. Obama met with executives of BP, including its chairman, for several hours at the White House. He said "BP is a strong and viable company and it is in all of our interests that it remains so." -By Jared A. Favole, Dow Jones Newswires; 202.862.9256; [email protected] (END) Dow Jones Newswires June 16, 2010 15:05 ET (19:05 GMT)