BP pension deficit widens to $8.7 bil

BP Plc, Europe's second-largest oil company, said its total pension deficit widened last year as the value of its investments dropped.

The worldwide deficit widened to $8.7 billion as of Dec. 31 from $301 million a year earlier, the company said in its annual report published yesterday. U.K. pension plan assets shrank 42 percent to $18.2 billion, and the value of the U.S. plan fell 33 percent to $5.4 billion.

London-based BP plans to contribute between $500 million and $750 million to the company's pension plans outside of the U.K. this year, Chief Financial Officer Byron Grote said Feb. 3.

The company's U.K. pension fund had a $1.6 billion surplus and doesn't need contributions in 2009, according to company data. BP suspended contributions to its two U.K. pension funds, BP Pension Fund and Burmah Castrol Fund, after the level of funding exceeded its limit in 2007.

BP reduced its worldwide workforce to 92,000 as of Dec. 31 last year, down 6.2 percent from a year earlier, according to the company report. The company had five employee fatalities last year, compared with seven a year earlier, it said.