The death of British Petroleum? BP's Clean Water Act liability goes up by at least 1% of their current market cap every 2 weeks. Maybe that's why they're trying to move $10 billion dollars off their books before the amount of the fine can be certified.

Fun fact of the day: if you believe the latest, relatively conservative government flow rate estimates of the BP oil leak (19,000 barrels/day), BP is accruing fines at a rate of $81.7 million dollars per day, just for their statutory Clean Water Act liability ($4300/barrel, up from $3,000/barrel in the case of gross negligence under Title 33 USC § 1321).  BP's market cap at the moment is $122.6 billion dollars.

This means that BP is accruing fines equal to 1% of their current market cap about every two weeks.  If the more dire estimates of the flow rate turn out to be correct at 100,000 barrels/day, BP is accruing fines equal to 1% of their current market cap every three days.  The Deepwater Horizon well has been leaking gushing for 45 days at the time of this writing.

Even if BP were to complete their relief well in August (which is about as likely as winning the lottery), Credit Suisse estimates that BP's fully loaded costs for this disaster would be about $37 billion ... about a quarter of their market cap.

All of this is probably why BP is trying to move $10 billion dollars off the books before the fine calculation becomes official.  Senate Democrats sent a letter to BP asking them to stop, but it remains to be seen whether they'll see much cooperation from their fellow Senators, as the Republicans have been trying their best to keep the private tort liability caps for BP as low as possible (video after the jump) in what is perhaps the most cynical, embarrassingly transparent kowtow to Big Oil in years.