imageLONDON: BP said Tuesday it sank into the red in the second quarter, after taking a vast $10.8-billion (9.8-billion-euro) hit on costs linked to the deadly 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

The British energy giant's performance also took a heavy knock from slumping global oil prices.

Losses after taxation stood at $5.82 billion (5.26 billion euros) between April and June, BP said in a results statement. That contrasted with net profit of $3.37 billion in the second quarter of 2014.

"In the quarter BP took a charge of $10.8 billion in total related to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill -- including $9.8 billion associated with the government settlements as well as charges for further business economic loss claims and other ongoing costs," BP said in the earnings release.

BP had already announced on July 2 that it would pay a record $18.7 billion to compensate the US government and five states for damages stemming from the oil spill.

The British company's total pre-tax charge for the incident now stands at $54.6 billion.

The spill was sparked by a blast on the Deepwater Horizon rig which killed 11 men and sent millions of barrels of oil flowing into Gulf waters, in one of the worst environmental disasters to strike the United States.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2015

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