For BP, 2012 will be a crucial year as the UK oil major defends itself against a barrage of civil lawsuits and the looming threat of criminal charges relating to the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in which 11 people died…The company is already a defendant in more than 600 private civil suits…All eyes will be on New Orleans where, on February 27, the US district court will begin to hear a consolidated amalgam of civil claims for damages…In an effort to unravel the tangle of competing claims and counter-claims, the trial is set to proceed in three phases covering blame for the disaster, the amount of oil spilt and the extent of the damage caused by the disaster…A wild card for BP and its employees in 2012 will be the criminal investigations that federal regulators launched in 2010…BP…declined to comment on the status of the criminal investigations. [also refers to Transocean, Anadarko Petroleum, Cameron Intl, Weatherford Intl, Halliburton]