Catherwood LibraryILR School

While many Gulf Coast residents who lost jobs or income due to the BP oil rig explosion are being compensated by the company, shallow-water oil rig workers who have been laid off have nowhere to go. BP also put $100 million into a fund for deep-water workers who lost their jobs due to the drilling moratorium, but some are asking that the fund also be opened up to shallow-water workers who were affected by the disaster. Analysts say that around 500 workers have been laid, which they attribute to the longer time it takes for shallow-water permits to come through, and the smaller number of those permits. Some politicians say that BP should open up the fund to those workers, but the company says that it will not have enough for all of them. Some companies that can afford it have kept workers on the payroll even without work, but they say that they are burning through their money without permits to drill. The government says that understand the difficulty, but that companies have to obey the new regulations before they will be issued permits.