HOUSTON -- Oil and gas supermajor BP PLC says it has returned to strong profitability as it gears up for a legal battle that could ensue starting this month.

The company this morning said its fourth-quarter net earnings for 2011 rose to almost $7.6 billion, up from $4.6 billion during the same period in 2010. Total earnings for 2011 were reported as $23.9 billion, a sharp swing from the net loss of $4.9 billion the company took in 2010 as a result of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Though its financial footing has recovered, the spill aftermath still looms large in BP's near future.

BP executives today raised the total price tag for the disaster -- the spill cleanup and response has so far cost it about $43 billion, up from an earlier estimate of around $41 billion, attributed to higher-than-expected costs for shoreline cleanup.

The supermajor announced late last year that cleanup operations in the Gulf of Mexico were largely complete. BP officials reiterated that this morning, noting that officials currently are simply monitoring the environment and awaiting the all-clear signal from the U.S. Coast Guard.

Sometime this year, officials expect to announce that cleanup along most of the 4,300 miles of Gulf shoreline looked at after the spill will be "operationally complete." BP funds will continue to support longer-term impact monitoring as part of the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative.

"For those shoreline segments that needed active mechanical or manual cleaning, the majority of the active cleaning was completed by the end of the fourth quarter of 2011," BP officials said in a release. "These segments will continue to be patrolled and maintained until they meet the applicable clean-up standards such that the [Coast Guard's federal onsite coordinator] concludes that the operational activities are complete."

BP also continues to pay into a $20 billion compensation fund. But company officials said today that it should be finished contributing to that fund this year thanks to the more than $5 billion it got from settlements with its drilling partners on the doomed Macondo well project, including Anadarko Petroleum Corp., Cameron International, Weatherford and MOEX USA.

Now BP faces the prospect of paying billions of dollars more as a result of some 600 lawsuits filed against it and pooled together. That trial is scheduled to begin in New Orleans on Feb. 27.

According to Reuters, BP CEO Bob Dudley told analysts during a call in London early this morning that his company was prepared to settle the lawsuits but was equally prepared to fight it out in court should a settlement be unreachable.

BP reported a 103 percent reserve replacement for 2011. The firm has resumed its deepwater activity in the Gulf of Mexico. Declining Gulf oil and gas output was offset some by a major increase in operations off the coast of Angola. Offshore projects in Brazil and Egypt are also moving ahead, officials there said.