U.S. fines BP $5 million for reports on tribal lands

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Interior said on Wednesday it fined BP Plc a civil penalty of $5.2 million for submitting "false, inaccurate, or misleading" reports for energy output on tribal lands in Colorado.

It was the first big fine levied by the Interior Department's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, formerly known as the Minerals Management Service.

Southern Ute tribal auditors said they initially discovered errors during an audit and notified BP in August 2007. They said BP reported incorrect royalty rates, prices and production of oil or natural gas on leases.

"It is simply unacceptable for companies to repeatedly misreport production, particularly when it interferes with the auditing process," Michael Bromwich, the director of BOEM, said in a release.

BP spokeswoman Sheila Williams said the company is considering its options in response to the order.

She added all BP errors identified by the Southern Utes and the federal government have been corrected and the majority of them had no impact on royalty payments.

(Reporting by Timothy Gardner, Tom Doggett and Tom Bergin in London; Editing by Walter Bagley and Sofina Mirza-Reid)