BP Has Paid Out $256M in Claims So Far

BP says it has paid $256 million to people who have lost income or profits because of the massive Gulf oil spill. That includes $30 million over the past week.

The company says it will start sending at least another $60 million in advance money to cover August payments by the end of the week.

BP PLC says fishermen have received $39 million, shrimpers have received $23 million and oyster harvesters have been paid $8 million. Charter boat owners have received $6 million.

Another $117 million has gone to workers and businesses in a variety of fields, including deck hands and seafood processing workers.

BP says it has received 133,000 claims and has issued about 83,000 checks.

Special Section: Disaster in the Gulf

Kenneth Feinberg, government administrator of a separate $20 billion oil spill compensation fund, has said payments from that fund will roll out starting in August.

There's been an additional flurry of BP news lately, as the company announced that Bob Dudley will take over as CEO from Tony Hayward on October 1.

As Dudley was promoted from Managing Director, BP announced a second quarter loss of $17 billion.

To pay for the epic oil spill, B.P. has been forced to sell $30 billion in assets, roughly 13 percent of its global production resources. The company has also set aside $32.2 billion to cover spill costs including $20 billion for its general compensation fund, reports CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann.

The company has already made a start with the $7 billion sale of gas assets in the United States, Canada and Egypt to Apache Corp.

"It's of course a tragedy and it has large consequences, but we've no doubt that we will be able to rebuild the company," said BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg.

Dudley grew up partly in Hattiesburg, Miss., and has so far avoided any public missteps. He spent 20 years at Amoco Corp., which merged with BP in 1998, and lost out to Hayward on the CEO slot three years ago.