Global oil major BP on Friday confirmed that the company's total expenditure related to the Mexican Gulf oil spill, which took place in April this year, has already reached $8 billion, nearly $2 billion more than initial estimate of $6 billion.

As said by the company in a statement, the expenditure of $8 billion includes amount spent on containment, drilling of relief well, grants send to Gulf States and federal costs. Earlier, the company had created a $20 billion fund to deal with all the obligations related to the devastating oil spill.

As per an independent Gulf Coast Claims Facility (GCCF) appointed by the government, since August 23 it has received as many as 42,000 claims on the issue and around 4,900 has been settled so far for $38.5 million. However, before the GCCF took over the responsibility, BP on its own had processed 127,000 claims and paid around $399 million.

The oil spill, which took place after an explosion a BP oil well, not only took 11 lives, but also brought huge environmental damage; mostly related to sea as around five million barrels of oil were released into the sea water before the leak could be plugged.