"The parties have reached an out-of-court settlement of this matter," Bill Smith, an Exxon spokesman, said.

But in July an Exxon spokesman refused to commit the company to doing so.

An Exxon spokesman said his company did not comment on price changes.

Joe Tucker, an Exxon spokesman, said 5,000 workers were now directly involved in the cleanup.

An Exxon spokesman said that although some internal pipelines were damaged, the plant's production facilities were not affected.

Henry Beathard, an Exxon spokesman, said the company had summoned its 20,000 American employees to meetings today.

An Exxon spokesman said today that efforts to salvage the ship would begin once the remaining oil in its tanks had been pumped aboard smaller ships.

Bill Smith, an Exxon spokesman, said he did not know of any corporate inspection regimen to which the 12-inch pipeline was ever subjected regularly.

An Exxon spokesman, Les Rogers, said today that the results of an internal investigation into the matter would be made available to the courts.

An Exxon spokesman, Karsten Rodvik, said that the decision to return this year should come as no surprise.