BP’s damaged public image was left in tatters yesterday after furious US lawmakers pilloried the energy giant’s boss, accusing him of stonewalling on the causes of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
In hostile questioning on Thursday, lawmakers tried and failed to win answers about the spill from BP chief Tony Hayward.
“I can’t pass judgment on those decisions,” he told openly disbelieving members of a key US House panel investigating the worst environmental disaster in US history. “I think it’s too early to reach conclusions.”
HOT SEAT
Just a day after BP won praise for bowing to White House demands to create a US$20 billion fund to pay spill-related compensation claims, the British company’s CEO was back in the hot seat.
Hayward said he would wait until BP finished its probe into the April 20 blast that killed 11 workers aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform, sank the rig and sent oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico’s waters.
“I wasn’t involved in any decision-making” on how to drill, test or secure the well,” said Hayward, a 28-year oil industry veteran.
Hayward’s contrite opening remarks to the panel and a vow that the British energy giant would repair the economic and environmental damage wrought on US southern shores were quickly overshadowed as he declined to reveal specifics.
Waving pictures of oiled birds, the representatives did not hide their frustration or derision in a piece of political theater before a barrage of media cameras.
Hayward, who has been dubbed the most hated man in the US, offered an olive branch at the start of the day-long hearing, apologizing for the catastrophe.
“I know that only actions and results, not mere words ultimately can give you the confidence you seek. I give my pledge as the leader of BP that we will not rest until we make this right,” he said. “We and the entire industry will learn from this terrible event and emerge stronger, smarter and safer.”
But in a sign of how high tensions are running, a protester with a blackened face and hands briefly disrupted the hearing.
‘CRIME’
“You need to be charged with a crime, Tony,” she shouted. “You need to go to jail!”
Despite a massive mobilization, millions of liters of crude are fouling the shorelines of four US states, closing down vital fishing waters and hitting the region’s lucrative tourist industry.
US experts believe between 35,000 and 60,000 barrels is spewing into the Gulf every day.
Hayward told lawmakers BP is now siphoning up an average of 20,000 barrels a day of oil to two processing ships on the surface.
The US disaster coordinator, Admiral Thad Allen, said that by early next week the company hoped to be containing 105,980 liters — some of which will be burnt off by one of the surface ships.
In some good news, Allen said drilling on a relief well, seen as the only way of permanently capping the spill, was ahead of schedule.
“Mid-August was the target date. They’re actually ahead of schedule right now, but I’m not going to guarantee it will be earlier,” Allen said.
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