BP chief 'devastated' by oil spill

BP CEO Tony Hayward at a press conference on Fourchon Beach, Louisiana (AP)
12 April 2012

BP's chief executive has said he underestimated the possible environmental impact of the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Tony Hayward walked along Louisiana's oil-soaked Fourchon Beach and talked with clean-up workers in white overalls and yellow boots, some shovelling oily sand into garbage cans.

"I'm as devastated as you are by what I've seen here today," he said. "We are going to do everything in our power to prevent any more oil from coming ashore and we will clean every last drop up and we will remediate all of the environmental damage."

Fourchon Beach is one of the few sandy beaches in Louisiana, where most of the coast is marshland. Oil has come ashore there and at nearby Grand Isle in recent days as the spill continues to move west into sensitive wetlands and fishing grounds.

US Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen said BP was exhausting every possibility to plug the spill, triggered by an offshore drilling rig explosion on April 20. He said he could not push the company aside even if he wanted to. "To push BP out of the way, it would raise the question, to replace them with what?" Mr Allen, who is heading the US government response to the spill, said at a White House briefing.

Doug Suttles, BP's chief operating officer, said it would be at least Wednesday before the company tried using heavy mud and cement to plug the leak, a manoeuvre called a top kill that represents the best hope of stopping the oil after several failed attempts.

Several officials from President Barack Obama's administration led a delegation of US senators who surveyed the affected areas from the air on Monday, then held a press conference to emphasise that the clean-up was BP's responsibility. "We are going to stay on this and stay on BP until this gets done and it gets done the right way," said homeland security secretary Janet Napolitano.

Engineers are working on several back-up plans in case the top kill does not work. Mr Suttles said they would probably try to cap the well with a small containment dome if the manoeuvre failed. He said they were also considering injecting assorted junk into the well to stop the oil.

BP said its costs for the spill had grown to about 760 million dollars (£528 million), including containment efforts, drilling a relief well to stop the leak permanently, grants to Gulf states for their response costs, and payment of damage claims. BP added it was too early to calculate other potential costs and liabilities.

At least six million gallons of crude oil have spewed into the Gulf, according to a coastguard and BP estimate of how much is coming out, though some scientists say they believe the spill has already surpassed the 11 million-gallon 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off Alaska as the worst in US history.

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