BP confident of plugging oil leak soon
Updated
Oil giant BP says it is confident it will soon be able to stop oil from flowing into the Gulf of Mexico from a blown-out well.
The US government has now approved the use of dispersants under water near the source of the leak and BP says they are starting to work.
Engineers are also using underwater robots in an attempt to reinsert a tube surrounded by a stopper into the broken pipe.
They hope this will help them siphon the oil to the surface.
Doug Sutttles from BP says the operation is continuing and he is confident it will start working in the next few hours.
“We’re in the process of setting up the riser insertion tube,” he said.
“This is the method to contain the flow. This doesn’t stop the flow but it contains the flow.
“We hope to have that tool inserted by some time late tonight. It’s back on the seabed.”
The White House is calling for immediate clarification that BP will pay for the whole clean-up operation.
In a letter to BP, the interior secretary Ken Salazar and the homeland security secretary Janet Napolitano say the public has a right to know the company’s true intentions.
The letter from the Obama administration effectively asks BP to make clear how much it will pay for the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
Last week the chair of BP’s American operations said he believed that statutory $75 million cap on a company’s liability for oil spills was irrelevant.
He added that BP will pay for all clean-up costs and legitimate damages claims.
Meanwhile, BP’s chief executive appears to have dismissed the massive oil slick caused by the gusher as being blown out of proportion.
In an interview in Britain’s Guardian newspaper, Tony Hayward described the Gulf of Mexico is “a very big ocean”, saying the volume of oil and dispersant going into it is “tiny” compared to the total volume of water.
– ABC/BBC