Toxic clean-up in Hungary - Hungary declares state of emergency after fatal toxic spill - Cleanup, Probe of Sludge Flood in Hungary

Emergency workers and construction crews in Hungary are struggling to clear roads and homes hit by a spill of toxic red sludge.

Hundreds of people were evacuated after the disaster, when a gigantic sludge reservoir burst its banks at a metals plant in Ajka, a town 100 miles south-west of Budapest.

The torrent inundated homes, swept cars off roads and damaged bridges, disgorging an estimated one million cubic metres of toxic waste onto several nearby towns.

Hungarian officials have declared a state of emergency, calling the spill "an ecological disaster" that could threaten the Danube River, one of Europe's great waterways

Emergency workers wearing masks and chemical protection gear also rushed to pour 1,000 tons of plaster into the Marcal River in an attempt to bind the sludge and keep it from flowing on to the Danube, 45 miles away.

Named for its bright red colour, the material is a waste product in aluminium production that contains heavy metals and is toxic if ingested.

BP permanently ‘kills’ Gulf of Mexico well

With a final shot of cement, BP Plc permanently “killed” the runaway Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico that had unleashed the worst oil spill in US history, the top US spill official said today.

The well flowed unchecked for 87 days after an April 20 explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig killed 11 workers and unleashed a torrent of oil that marred the coasts of four Gulf Coast states and spurred a moratorium on all new US offshore drilling.





BP engineers sealed off the flow on July 15 with a cap on the mile-deep well after it spewed more than 4 million barrels into the Gulf, about 16 times as much as the 257,000 barrels of oil spilled by the Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska in 1989.

The spill wiped about US$70 billion (RM217 billion) from BP’s market value and spurred BP to replace its gaffe-prone chief executive Tony Hayward with an American, Bob Dudley, effective October 1.

BP cited for North Sea safety lapses as outgoing boss Tony Hayward faces grilling by MPs

BP's operations in the North Sea were investigated six months before the Gulf of Mexico explosion amid questions about staff safety training, it emerged today.

The Health and Safety Executive found new staff were not being trained to 'basic safety standards', according to a letter obtained under Freedom of Information laws.

Inspectors found several of the oil giant's installations in the North Sea had broken emergency rules for training staff on how to respond to spills.

Outgoing BP chief Tony Hayward is sure to be asked about the inadequate training when he appears before a Commons select committee today.


Safety lapses: Inspectors found BP was not training staff on its North Sea rigs properly six months before the Deepwater Horizon explosion



In his first appearance in the UK since the Deepwater Horizon disaster, Mr Hayward will face the Energy and Climate Change Committee.

It is is investigating the implications of the U.S. oil spill for offshore drilling in the UK and looking at whether the UK regime is fit for purpose.

The HSE launched an inquiry after a worker on the Clair Rig near the Shetland Islands complained, according to The Telegraph who put in the FoI request.

Executives were told in October 2009 that 'training of some new personnel to basic safety standards was ineffective'.

The letter also said there was 'evidence of a culture among your contractors, Seawell (up to senior levels of management), of working outside of procedures, permit or permit conditions'.

BP was also criticised for failing to take the complaint seriously. Investigators said it 'did not appear to identify the significance of issues raised by the complainant once they were put to you by HSE'.

The letter reportedly says there were four different examples on North Sea rigs from 2008 to 2009 when the oil giant had not learned lessons following investigations.

A BP spokesman told the paper: 'Clair has an excellent safety track record and has recently achieved six years of operation without any injury that has resulted in a day away from work.'

Other documents obtained by the Financial Times reveal how all but one of BP's North Sea rigs inspected in 2009 were reprimanded for a lack of training.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) inspectors also found the firm had not conducted oil spill exercises properly at some of its offshore sites.

Months later, BP's Deepwater Horizon rig off the coast of the U.S. exploded - killing 11 workers and sparking one of the biggest environmental catastrophes in U.S. history.

The firm has 33 platforms in the North Sea, of which 12 were inspected by DECC officials in the five years to the end of 2009.

Records show 11 of the 23 inspections led to criticism of its training methods, according to the Financial Times. Eight inspection reports on seven different rigs suggested necessary training had not happened.

A BP spokesman said: 'DECC raised a valid issue with us regarding oil spill response training and the frequency of training exercises.

'The small number of personnel who had not undergone refresher training have now been brought up to date and we are fully compliant with this part of the regulations.

'Regarding oil spill exercises, we regularly test our oil spill response plans, involving teams onshore and offshore.

'The DECC points related to the required frequency of offshore oil spill response exercises and to the particular way in which DECC required us to record those exercises.

'These points have now been clarified and we are fully compliant with the regulations.'


Tony Hayward will be grilled by the Energy and Climate Change Committee

BP report shifts blame for Gulf of Mexico oil spill to American contractors-'There was a bad cement job':

BP triggered a further backlash last night as it tried to shift the blame for the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster.

In a report released yesterday into the cause of the spill, the beleaguered British oil giant claims two other multinational companies were largely at fault.

The 193-page internal investigation plays down BP's culpability for America's worst ever oil leak, which took 87 days to plug and strained relations between the U.S. and Britain.


* BP highlights roles of Transocean and Halliburton
* 'Shoddy' cement caused gas & oil to enter well
* Oil rig workers took 40minutes to realise fault
* Explosion caused 5m barrels of oil to leak into Gulf

Findings: BP has admitted failures among its staff which led to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill

The Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico. A blow-out caused the biggest ever off-shore oil spill

But it provoked an angry response last night from U.S. politicians, environmentalists and the firms it singled out for blame.

BP insisted that a 'sequence of failures involving a number of different parties' led to the April 20 rig explosion that killed 11 rig workers and spilled almost five million barrels of oil into the ocean.

According to the four-month probe, 'multiple companies and work teams' contributed to the accident. BP denied the design of its deepwater well triggered the catastrophe.

Distancing itself further from blame, BP castigated Transocean, the U.S. owners of the rig, for failing to prevent the blast and U.S. contractors Halliburton for a botched cement job that allowed highly explosive natural gas, or hydrocarbons, to seep into the well.

Investigators also claimed the blowout preventer – a key piece of safety equipment operated by Transocean – should have sealed off the well immediately after the explosion.

'To put it simply, there was a bad cement job and a failure of the ... barrier at the bottom of the well,' BPs departing chief executive Tony Hayward said last night.

'It would appear unlikely that the well design contributed to the incident.'

However, critics said BP drew its conclusions without examining the broken blowout preventer, which was only hauled to the surface last week and is currently being probed by government experts.

The report brought a sharp rebuke from U.S. Congressman Edward Markey, a member of the investigating political committee.

'This report is not BP's mea culpa,' he said last night. 'Of their own key findings, they only explicitly take responsibility for half of one.BP is happy to slice up blame, as long as they get the smallest piece.'

Environmental groups in the U.S. claimed BP was 'bending over backwards' to avoid the blame to combat multi-billion pound lawsuits and possible charges of criminal negligence.

Transocean also hit back at the report, drawn up by BP safety chief Mark Bly and team of 50 employees.

This is a self-serving report that attempts to conceal the critical factor that set the stage for the incident: BP's fatally flawed well design,' the company said in a statement.

'In both its design and construction, BP made a series of cost-saving decisions that increased risk – in some cases, severely.'

Halliburton said it had carried out its work at the well 'in accordance with BP's specifications' and that the report contained 'a number of substantial omissions and inaccuracies'.

The report is far from the last word in determining culpability.

The U.S. Coast Guard and Department of Justice are carrying out their own inquiries, which could result in criminal charges.

Blame game: Outgoing BP CEO Tony Hayward supervises recovery operations in the Gulf of Mexico in may

Obama vows to finish US Gulf Coast recovery

US President Barack Obama pledged yesterday to finish restoring the Gulf Coast area hit by Hurricane Katrina, five years after the storm ravaged the region and hurt the credibility of his Republican predecessor.

Obama visited New Orleans — the city hardest hit by the disaster — with his family at the end of a week-and-a-half vacation on the island of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts.

During the 2008 presidential election, Democrat Obama sharply criticised then-President George W. Bush for his administration’s slow response to the flooding and devastation that played out live on television.

People burn incense during a ceremony to mark the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Louisiana, August 29, 2010





Ahead of November’s congressional elections, Obama used his speech to highlight his administration’s action since taking office, drawing an implicit contrast without naming Republicans or Bush by name.

“It was a natural disaster, but also a man-made catastrophe, a shameful breakdown in government that left countless men and women and children abandoned and alone,” Obama said in a speech at Xavier University.

On the most recent calamity to hit the region, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Obama promised to reverse the damage it caused and hold energy giant BP accountable.

In an interview with NBC News, Obama rejected any comparisons between his administration’s response to the spill and the Bush administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina.

“It’s just not accurate,” Obama said. “If you look we had — immediately thousands of vessels. Tens of thousands of people who are here.”

“We have a lot more work to do,” he said. But Obama said that because of a swift response, “there’s a lot less oil hitting these shores and these beaches than anybody would have anticipated given the volume that was coming out of the BP oil well.”

Hurricane Katrina, which hit in 2005, killed more than 1,800 people and caused billions of dollars of damage to the Gulf coast.

Obama noted that his director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Craig Fugate, had 25 years of experience in disaster management — a marked contrast with Michael Brown, whose performance as Fema director when Katrina hit was widely criticized and immortalized, infamously, by Bush’s comment: “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.”

Democrats are expected to lose a significant number of seats and possibly majorities in both houses of Congress in November. The White House has sought to boost Democrats’ chances by highlighting mistakes from the Bush years.

Obama said, “I don’t have to tell you that there are still too many vacant and overgrown lots. There are still too many students attending classes in trailers. There are still too many people unable to find work. And there are still too many New Orleanians ... who haven’t been able to come home.

“So while an incredible amount of progress has been made, on this fifth anniversary, I wanted to come here and tell the people of this city directly: my administration is going to stand with you, and fight alongside you, until the job is done,” he said to applause.

Obama visit Gulf of Mexico , the job is not done yet.Obama speak about BP oil disaster recovery.

Obama, daughter swim in Gulf in act of reassurance

US President Barack Obama (L), First Lady Michelle Obama (R) and their daughter Sasha

US President Barack Obama and his daughter have taken a dip in the Gulf of Mexico in an attempt to reassure Americans that, despite a massive oil spill, its waters remain safe for tourists.

The president, First Lady Michelle Obama, and their younger daughter, Sasha, traveled to this Florida panhandle city to talk to local officials and business leaders, and highlight the region's tourist attractions.

"Oil is no longer flowing into the Gulf," said Obama, speaking at a regional US Coast Guard headquarters.

"But I'm here to tell you that our job is not finished, and we are not going anywhere until it is."








First Lady Michelle Obama putts during a round of mini golf in Panama City Beach, Florida


Obama said that he wanted to deliver the message directly to residents of the Gulf Coast, which he has visited four times since an April explosion on a BP-leased oil rig triggered the disaster.

"I made a commitment in my visits here that I was going to stand with you... until you have fully recovered from the damage that has been done. And that is a commitment my administration is going to keep," he said.

And Obama also demanded that BP speed up processing of compensation claims, saying that "any delays -- by BP or by those managing the new fund -- are unacceptable."

Earlier this week BP made its first deposit into the 20-billion-dollar Gulf of Mexico oil disaster fund intended to compensate thousands of residents and businesses hit by the largest maritime oil spill of all time.

During the height of the spill Obama urged his fellow Americans to continue taking vacations in the region, famous for its sugar-white beaches, and heavily dependent on tourism.

Obama later went for a swim with Sasha at Panama City Beach, away from the public and press cameras, with only an official photo of the pair -- heads bobbing just above the water line -- issued by the White House.

While the image might go far to reassure Americans that Gulf waters are safe, Obama had stressed he would take a presidential plunge in private.

The last time Obama, who is physically fit, was photographed swimming without a shirt was in December 2008, shortly before he took office. The pictures were broadly circulated and used on the cover of news magazines.

When a reporter covering the Obamas' Florida vacation joked that this publicity was a good thing, Michelle Obama shook her head and said, "No, it's not."

The president and his family are scheduled to return to Washington on Sunday.

The trip comes after US officials announced that energy giant BP's runaway well had been sealed, and that they were moving ahead with plans to make sure it is truly "killed" by pumping cement in through a relief well under the Gulf of Mexico.

Pressure tests showed that the well no longer has "direct communication with the reservoir" thanks to a "top kill" operation which pumped drilling mud and cement down through the wellhead, US spill chief Thad Allen said.

Allen on Saturday issued a directive for BP to run a new series of tests and provide plans to ensure the safety of the "bottom kill" operation, before he gives the green light for a relief well to resume drilling.

The relief well, which is approximately 100 feet (30 meters) short of intersecting the well bore, was delayed several days because of a storm. Once it resumes, the bottom kill operation is expected to take four days.

The huge spill threatened the fish and wildlife-rich Gulf Coast with environmental ruin and plunged residents of coastal communities into months of anguish over their livelihoods and the region's future.

The week after his Florida sojourn, Obama is scheduled for a multi-stop trip around the United States, starting in Wisconsin, where he is to visit factories specializing in renewable energy production and fund-raise for Democrats.

Monday evening will see him in Los Angeles for another fundraising event, before he heads to the northwestern state of Washington on Tuesday for a meeting on health care reform in Seattle, the White House said.

Later this month the First Family is scheduled to vacation in Martha's Vineyard, an elite Massachusetts resort island, in the US northeast.

Gulf oil well seal holding, BP looks to final kill

BP said yesterday the cement seal on its crippled Gulf of Mexico oil well was holding and a relief well to permanently plug the ill-fated borehole was on track to reach its target in mid-August.

As the final stages of the long-awaited “kill” operation moved forward, nagging questions remained about the lasting environmental and economic impact to the US Gulf region from the world’s worst offshore oil accident.

More than 100 days after the start of the catastrophic spill that ravaged ecologically sensitive wetlands and lucrative coastal economies, BP said no oil was leaking from the undersea Macondo well and no “recoverable oil” was left on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico.







BP finished pumping cement two days ago into the ruptured well one mile below the surface after injections of drilling mud earlier this week subdued the pressure of oil and gas. The wellhead was provisionally capped in mid-July.

The so-called “static kill” at the top of the well is due to be finished off with a “bottom kill” later in August with more mud and cement injected through a relief bore that will be drilled into the well shaft. This relief well is regarded as the final solution to plug the reservoir 13,000 feet beneath the seabed.

BP’s chief operating officer for exploration and production, Doug Suttles, told reporters at a briefing the cement job “appears to be performing as expected.”

“All of the indications so far look very encouraging,” he said in New Orleans. Engineers were pressure-testing the injected cement.

Retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, who heads the oil spill response for President Barack Obama’s administration, said the relief well was scheduled to reach the well shaft below the seabed “somewhere between August 14th and 15th.”

“We are unequivocally committed to completing the relief wells,” Allen said in a conference call. A second, back-up relief well is also being drilled.

Asked if BP would sell its rights to the Macondo field, Suttles replied: “We just haven’t thought about that.”

“Clearly there is lots of oil and gas here and we will have to think about what to do with that at some point,” he said.

The well’s sealing was a relief for both the British energy giant, whose shares and image have taken a beating from the spill, and for Obama’s administration, which has faced criticism over its response and has pledged to help the pollution-struck Gulf Coast recover.

BP shares, which have recovered strongly since hitting a 14-year low on June 25, appeared once again to be buoyed by the news of the progress in plugging the well. They rose more than 2 per cent in early London trading before falling back to close up 0.46 per cent. In New York, BP shares were up 1.7 per cent in late-day trading.

“FAR FROM FINISHED”

Suttles, who had led BP’s overall oil spill response in the Gulf but was now returning to his chief operating officer role in Houston, nevertheless acknowledged the coastal cleanup effort was “far from finished.”

“Clearly we feel like its moving to a new phase because we’ve been three weeks without new oil flowing into the sea, and we don’t have oil out on the open water anymore. But we still have a lot of work around the shoreline,” he said.

Mike Utsler was appointed to take his place in BP’s Gulf spill response operation.

The company has lost over a third of its market value since the April 20 blast that killed 11 workers, sank the Deepwater Horizon rig and triggered the spill.

Questions remain about the final total of the cleanup bill and the damage liabilities and possible fines BP will face.

“If chapter one of BP’s corporate nightmare took place largely under sea in the battle to plug the leak, the next chapter in this odyssey is likely to play out in courtrooms and law offices,” IHS Energy analyst Andrew Neff wrote in a briefing note.

BP, which already agreed to a US$20 billion (RM62.90 billion) escrow fund to guarantee cover of economic damage claims, has said it would sell about US$30 billion in assets to address the costs related to the spill, and this asset selling process has started.

“More assets are expected to be up for grabs as BP shrinks itself to steel the company for a vastly different future than it envisioned back in April, when the firm was reportedly days away from announcing a massive oil discovery in the Gulf of Mexico,” Neff added.

FEARS OF LONG-TERM IMPACT

Many Gulf Coast residents have seen their fishing and tourism livelihoods devastated by the spill. They and some scientists have expressed skepticism about the government’s assertion this week that around 75 per cent of the estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil leaked by the well had either evaporated, dispersed or otherwise been contained.

Carol Browner, Obama’s energy and climate change adviser, yesterday defended the government declaration.

“No one is trying to oversell or undersell anything,” she told a community forum in St. Petersburg, Florida, where local business owners said even the threat of oil washing ashore had been enough to dent their income. There was no actual oil impact on the St. Petersburg part of the Florida coastline.

BP was working to produce a Gulf Coast recovery masterplan within six months and hoped to get support for it from federal, state and local government, according to James Lee Witt, a former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and now a crisis management consultant, who has been contracted by BP.

Michael Hirshfield, chief scientist with the ocean conservation advocacy group Oceana, said it could be years before experts fully understood the spill’s effects on the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem, or on species like the Atlantic bluefin tuna, which spawns in these waters.

“It’s like trying to prove a negative. You have to wait longer for the absence of something,” he said, as the group prepared to embark on a two-month trip to assess long-term impacts on coral, fish, sharks and other marine life.

BP readies killer punch for world’s worst oil spill

BP tested equipment today to deliver the first of two planned killer punches to permanently plug its ruptured Gulf of Mexico oil well that caused the world’s worst accidental oil spill.

As engineers from the British-based company ironed out last-minute technical hitches before the initial “static kill” operation, which could take place today, new revised US government figures showed that almost five million barrels of oil leaked before the well was provisionally capped in mid-July.






This made the spill, that began in April following a deadly rig explosion and sinking at the BP-owned deepwater Macondo well, the world’s largest accidental release of oil, surpassing the 1979 Ixtoc well blowout in Mexico’s Bay of Campeche. The Ixtoc well gushed almost three million barrels.

The Macondo spill, already the worst in US history, has unleashed an environmental and economic catastrophe on the US Gulf Coast, disrupting the livelihoods of fishermen and tourism operators and triggering a barrage of damages lawsuits against BP. The company has said it will pay all legitimate claims and clean up fouled beaches and marshes.

The new leak estimates spelled further bad news for BP, which also faces an investigation by US securities regulators into whether its employees profited illegally from the Gulf of Mexico spill. The revised flow numbers suggest the company had underestimated costs by at least US$1 billion (RM3.2 billion).

US regulators are looking into potential insider trading in shares of BP, including by BP employees, two sources familiar with the probe told Reuters yesterday.

BP had estimated the well had leaked some four million barrels of oil and that it would be fined US$1,100 per barrel under the Clean Water Act. The company faces fines of US$4,300 per barrel if gross negligence is proven, but said it saw no need to change its provision as a result of the new estimate.

“Given these new figures, BP could be fined US$4.5 billion if gross negligence is not proven, or up to US$14 billion if it is,” one dealer said.

BP, which took a US$32.2 billion charge related to the spill in its results last week, has said it will sell US$25 billion to US$30 billion of assets to pay for the spill. Kuwait’s oil minister said his state-owned Kuwait Petroleum International may be interested in buying some of the assets.

BP said today it had agreed to sell its Colombian oil unit to a consortium of Canada’s Talisman Energy and Ecopetrol, Colombia’s national oil company, for US$1.9 billion.

BP shares initially fell around 1 per cent in early trading today, but later recovered.

BP’s 10 per cent partner in the well, Japan’s Mitsui, has yet to decide if it will shoulder any costs, helping the trading house to report a 79 per cent jump in profits to 102.5 billion yen (RM3.77 billion).

BP’s other partner in the well, Anadarko Petroleum, which owns a 25 per cent share, is due to report its second quarter results later today.

Hopes for definitively plugging the well are focused on the planned “static kill”, which will inject drilling mud, and possibly later cement, into the top of the well, the first step of a two-pronged operation to seal off the oil deposit.

A crucial test of the equipment that will deliver the “static kill” was delayed yesterday due to a hydraulic leak.

“It is anticipated that the injectivity test and possibly the static kill will take place Tuesday,” BP said in a brief statement late yesterday.

The planned “static kill” will be followed by the completion of a relief well later in August, which will seek to “bottom kill” the well by pumping in more mud and cement.

The Flow Rate Technical Group and a team of government scientists said that of the 4.9 million barrels of oil released by the well, BP had siphoned only about 16 per cent to surface vessels, while the rest went into the sea.

The group’s previous leak estimate ranged from 35,000 to 60,000 barrels a day.

With the peak of the annual hurricane season approaching, authorities are worried that tropical storms could disrupt the well-kill and clean-up operations in the Gulf of Mexico.

Tropical Storm Colin formed in the central Atlantic Ocean early today, but most computer weather models show the system tracking northwest towards Bermuda, and not towards key oil and gas production facilities in the Gulf of Mexico

BP begins 'static kill' operation in bid to finally seal Gulf of Mexico oil well

A boat motors through oil sheen from the Deepwater Horizon spill on Saturday. BP are launching a static kill operation to try and permanently seal the oil well


BP today launched an operation to permanently plug its Gulf of Mexico oil well with cement and mud in a bid to bring to an end the worst spill in U.S. history.

Engineers are set to begin a so-called 'static kill' procedure that will see a stream of mud and cement pumped into the well.

The mile-deep underground reservoir is currently temporarily sealed after a containment cap was placed over the well two weeks ago.






A containment capping stack was placed over the well two weeks ago, temporarily sealing it


It marked the first time BP stopped oil gushing into the Gulf since the leak erupted on April 20 when the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and sank, killing 11 workers.

BP's static kill plans have been designed to enable the well to be fully sealed, providing the clearest path yet for the crews drilling the relief well to ensure oil can never again erupt from the deep-sea well.

As much as 184 million gallons have spewed into the Gulf since the disaster struck.
But there is still uncertainty surrounding its latest efforts.

When the static kill operation begins, crews will pump heavy mud through pipes installed straight down the throat of the well.

If the mud forces the oil back into the underground reservoir and scientists are confident the pressure remains stable, then engineers can pump in fresh cement to seal it.

Officials may then begin the process of choking the underground reservoir feeding the well by pumping mud and then cement down an 18,000ft relief well.

BP officials have said they believe the process is the only way to plug the well for good, by sealing the source of the oil, not just its route to the sea.

'It could be the beginning of the end,' said Darryl Bourgoyne, director of Petroleum Engineering Research Lab at Louisiana State University.

'The only thing that separates the oil from the sea now is the valve. This puts thousands of feet of mud and cement in between,' said Eric Smith, associate director of the Tulane Energy Institute.

'The idea is to have as many barriers as possible between the ocean and the reservoir. We're adding an extra level of safety.'

The whole procedure is still set to be completed by late August despite a brief evacuation for Tropical Storm Bonnie last week.

As the temperature of Gulf of Mexico waters increases, so does the threat of another violent storm disrupting the cleanup process.

Federal officials are hoping to end the oil threat once and for all before peak hurricane season, which typically lasts from mid-August to late October.

'If we can get this thing shut in permanently before the August hurricane season, we will have dodged a huge bullet,' said Rear Adm. Paul Zukunft, the government's on-scene coordinator.

BP has faced fierce criticism in the U.S. over its handling of the affair and last week confirmed the departure of under-fire boss Tony Hayward in October, to be replaced by American chief Bob Dudley.

It also revealed a £20.8billion blow from the spill in second quarter figures and is now threatened with a drilling ban in the Gulf after U.S. politicians passed a bill proposing to freeze the firm out of new drilling leases for seven years.

BP used excessive dispersants in Gulf oil spill expose toxic in seas.

New documents released by a congressional subcommittee indicate that Coast Guard officials allowed BP to use excessive amounts of chemical dispersants in the Gulf of Mexico.

BP used the chemicals to break up oil after the April 20 Deepwater Horizon rig explosion sent millions of gallons of crude gushing into the Gulf.





Despite a federal directive restricting their use, the Coast Guard routinely granted exemptions, said Rep. Edward J. Markey, chairman of the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee.

In May, the Environmental Protection Agency, along with the Coast Guard, ordered the oil giant to stop surface application of the chemicals during the oil spill except in rare occasions, according to a House subcommittee on energy and environment.

In rare cases, exemptions had to be requested, documents show.

"BP carpet bombed the ocean with these chemicals, and the Coast Guard allowed them to do it," Markey said in a statement Saturday. "After we discovered how toxic these chemicals really are, they had no business being spread across the Gulf in this manner."

The exemptions granted "were in no way rare," Markey said in a letter to retired Adm. Thad Allen, the former commandant of the Coast Guard who is now overseeing the federal response to the oil spill.

The Coast Guard approved more than 74 exemptions in 48 days, Markey said. In one instance, Coast Guard officials allowed the oil giant to use a larger volume of dispersants than it had applied for, he said.

Dispersants are "a toxic stew of chemicals, oil and gas, with impacts that are not well understood," Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, said in the letter to Allen.

Markey said the findings are based on an analysis by the Energy and Environment Subcommittee.

Calls to a BP press office and the Joint Information Center were not immediately returned.

"The use of dispersant is always a difficult decision, with environmental trade-offs that must be taken seriously into consideration," EPA spokesman Brendan Gilfillan said Sunday. "As a result, its use in response to the BP spill was subject to numerous strict conditions once it quickly became apparent that BP wanted to use it in unprecedented quantities and in novel ways."

BP's use of disperants peaked at 70,000 gallons on May 24, the EPA said. It was after that the EPA ordered the halt on its use, except for rare occasions. From the time that directive was issued, dispersant use dropped 72 percent, Gilfillan said.

Initially, the EPA was not involved in the day-to-day decisions about which exceptions were granted, but that changed in late June.

"While EPA may not have concurred with every individual waiver granted by the federal on-scene coordinator, the agency believes dispersant use has been an essential tool in mitigating this spill's impact, preventing millions of gallons of oil from doing even more damage to sensitive marshes, wetlands and beaches and the economy of the Gulf coast," Gilfillan said.

Markey said the subcommittee also found contradictions on how much chemical dispersant was being used. On other occasions, BP used more than the amount approved by the Coast Guard, Markey said in his letter.

The report brings into question the total amount of dispersants used in the Gulf. BP says it has used 1.8 million gallons to break up oil flowing from the Deepwater Horizon's ruptured well.

"The validity of those numbers are now in question," Markey said.

Key Ships Leave Oil Spill Site Ahead of Storm-Oil Spill News Investigation and Schwarzenegger on Mel Gibson: He's like the oil leak-DAY 94 Not Seen On TV BP Oil Disaster Government Investigatio

Tropical storm Bonnie forces BP to suspend relief well drilling

BP's efforts to finish relief oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico have been set back.

The approaching tropical storm Bonnie has forced BP to temporarily suspend drilling on its relief well in the Gulf of Mexico. Work to permanently plug the oil giant's leaking Macondo oil well, that has spewed more than 4m barrels of oil into the gulf, could be held up for up two weeks.





In a major setback for BP, ships working on the damaged Macondo oil well are leaving the site due to the storm, which formed over the Bahamas and could reach the spill area by the weekend. They have been ordered to evacuate the area by the US government.

The fleet of 65 ships involved in the disaster response is now leaving, including vessels being used in the monitoring of the well, although some ships may remain on site.

Thad Allen, the official appointed by Barack Obama to lead the federal response to the disaster, said: "Some of the boats may be able to remain on site but we will err on the side of safety.

"While these actions may delay the effort to kill the well for several days, the safety of individuals at the well site is our highest concern."

He warned: "If we have to evacuate the area ... we could be looking at 10 to 14 day gaps in our lines of operation."

BP confirmed this morning that "relief well activities at the well site will be temporarily suspended because of potentially adverse weather associated with tropical storm Bonnie, which is projected to track into the Gulf of Mexico.

"BP will continue to monitor the well as long as weather permits. Duration of the suspension of relief well activities will be dependent on the weather."

Undersea robots that monitor the sealed well will be the last to leave the site and first to return, because they are connected to ships able to handle waves as high as 15 feet, Allen added.

"We are staging our skimming vessels and other assets in a manner that will allow us to promptly restart oil mitigation efforts as soon as the storm passes and we can ensure the safety of our personnel," he said.

The threat of bad weather has already delayed efforts to plug the well at its source deep beneath the sea bed. Engineers were obliged to suspend work on the first of two relief wells that are being drilled down to the source, setting back the final procedure to plug it.

They had been expecting to spend this week reinforcing the last section of the relief well with concrete, which would have allowed an attempt to plug the well with heavy mud over this weekend. Now that will be delayed .

A federal investigation panel in New Orleans continues its exploration of the causes of the disaster which began on 20 April when the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded. A widow of one of the 11 workers who died, Natalie Roshto, told the hearing on Thursday that he had been anxious about conditions on the rig before it went up. She said that her husband Shane had called it the oil well "from hell" and told her: "Mother Nature just doesn't want us to drill here."

Meanwhile a Senate committee has called on BP boss Tony Hayward to testify before it on whether the company played any role in the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi from prison in Scotland last year. It has been suggested BP lobbied for his release in the hope of securing a lucrative oil deal with Libya.

BP Photoshops ANOTHER oil spill image: Picture of helicopter flying over sea is removed from website after landing tower is spotted in background... and a bottle of water on the roof

The evidence: Blogger John Arovosis indicates misaligned Photoshopping under his written explanation

Spare a thought for BP's PR department.

As if they weren't already tasked with steering the company and its bungling bosses through the worst oil spill in history, now their job is being sabotaged by trigger-happy picture editors.

For the second time this week, doctored images have appeared on BP's oil leak response website.

Following this latest gaffe, the oil giant has told its post-production crew to 'refrain from doing cutting-and-pasting (sic) in the future'.



Flying low: Strange meter readings




Everything all white? The picture on the left shows a busy BP team at their Houston office. Note the busy graphics projected on the white screen... while on the original image on the right, the screen is blank

Gizmodo blogger Brian Barrett published one of the images, of a helicopter, which he said was sent in to him by a tipster, yesterday.

The picture was entitled 'View of the MC 252 site from the cockpit of a PHI S-92 helicopter 26 June 2010'.

Gizmodo contended however that the helicopter is not in the air at all but on the ground - near a landing tower that has been clumsily left in the shot.

The view of the ocean in the windscreen is a shoddy composite, the blogger claimed, while the pilots themselves are holding pre-flight forms.
Today, the image - which had appeared on its website - was removed and a clarification was posted on the company's Flickr page.

A spokesman for BP said: 'The original and edited images have been posted on the BP Flickr page for comparison.'

To further embarrass the oil giant, a second image has also come to light - this time showing a group of technical staff at a meeting in Houston.

On a wall is a white screen, with busy-looking graphics projected onto it.

However, it turns out they had been edited by 'over-enthusiastic photo library folk' using 'colouring tools' to ensure they could be seen by readers.
It comes just hours after the company was forced to admit that it had in fact doctored another image of its oil spill command centre to make the screen bank staff look busier.

Over the weekend, another eagle-eyed blogger noticed a problem in Houston – and reported that two of the ten screens looked suspiciously like images had been digitally pasted over them.

By Monday, however, the photo on the BP website had changed – now revealing two blank screens in place of the crudely doctored fixes alleged by John Aravosis at Americablog.com.

After further criticism, BP eventually came clean: its photographer had used the computer programme Photoshop to amend his picture.
Spokesman Scott Dean insisted that the photographer was showing off his Photoshop skills and there was no ill intent.

Mr Dean also said BP has ordered its workers to use Photoshop only for things like colour correction, cropping and removing glare.

The embarrassments emerged as a storm brewing in the Caribbean brought the deep-sea effort to plug the ruptured oil well to a near standstill.
The delay came just as BP was getting tantalisingly close to going in for the kill.

Work on the relief well - now just days from completion - was suspended.

Now the cap that has been keeping the oil bottled up since last week may have to be reopened, allowing crude to gush into the sea again for days, said retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, the government's point man on the crisis.

'This is necessarily going to be a judgment call,' said Allen.

He was waiting to see how the storm developed before deciding whether to order any of the ships and crews stationed some 50 miles out in the Gulf of Mexico to head for safety.

The cluster of thunderstorms passed over Haiti and the Dominican Republic yesterday, and forecasters said the system would probably move into the Gulf over the weekend.

They gave it a 40 per cent chance of becoming a tropical depression or a tropical storm by tomorrow.

Crews had planned to spend Wednesday and Thursday reinforcing with cement the last few feet of the relief tunnel that they hope to use to pump mud into the gusher and kill it once and for all.

But BP put the task on hold and instead placed a temporary plug called a storm packer deep inside the tunnel, in case it has to be abandoned until the storm passes.

If the work crews are evacuated, it could be two weeks before they can resume the effort to kill the well.

That would upset BP's timetable, which called for finishing the relief tunnel by the end of July and plugging the blown-out well by early August.

Scientists have been scrutinising underwater video and pressure data for days, trying to determine if the capped well is holding tight or in danger of rupturing and causing an even bigger disaster. If the storm prevents BP from monitoring the well, the cap may simply be reopened, allowing oil to spill into the water, Allen said.
BP and government scientists were meeting to discuss whether the cap could be monitored from shore.

The relief tunnel extends about two miles under the seabed and is about 50 to 60 feet vertically and four feet horizontally from the ruptured well.

BP plans to insert a final string of casing, or drilling pipe, cement it into place, and give it up to a week to set, before attempting to punch through to the blown-out well and kill it.

In other spill-related news, The New York Times reported early today that Deepwater Horizon rig workers said in a confidential survey before the April 20 explosion that they were concerned about safety and the condition of some equipment on board.

A spokesman for Transocean, the owner of the rig leased by BP, confirmed the existence of the reports to The Associated Press.

Four oil giants - BP was not among them - agreed to pool $1billion to form a new company that would respond to offshore oil spills.

The company would be able to mobilize within 24 hours to capture and contain spills at depths of up to 10,000ft, according to the American Petroleum Institute.

The company's beleaguered CEO, Tony Hayward, was 'invited' to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee next week on BP's role in the release of the Lockerbie bomber.

The company was also forced to deny that he was set to step down after a report in the Times.

BP's broken well spewed somewhere between 94 million and 184 million gallons into the Gulf before the cap was attached.

The crisis - the biggest offshore oil spill in U.S. history - unfolded after the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig exploded April 20, killing 11 workers.


Look at that: Window tint anomaly


Shouldering the blame: Is that clumsy cropping


In the air? On the ground? Both? 1. Control tower is visible; 2. Blurring of 'joined seas' and missing part of boat; 3. Badly cropped shoulder; 4. Drink bottle resting on the roof; 5. Misaligned window tint around pilot's glasses; 6. Window reveals floor rather than sea; 7. Altimeter has very low reading; 8. Pre-flight checklist in hand

Looks familiar: The original helicopter picture. Great news for 'spot the difference' fans - but no so good for BP

Tall tales: Pixelation blurs the sea between the two boats, indicative of two images being joined together

Hair today, gone tomorrow: The results of the white screen editing job can be plainly seen as it has a strange effect on the hairlines of two team members

All change: In the picture on the left, the bottom screen in the middle and another, second from right at the top, appeared doctored.  In the picture on the right, the two previously filled screens are blank after BP put up the undoctored version days later

Predators circle BP, the stricken British giant-This great British company faces death by a thousand cuts

The political firestorm surrounding BP led to a roller-coaster ride for the company's shares on stock exchanges yesterday.

Rumours the firm could consider bankruptcy protection vied with speculation it had become a bid target.

On Wall Street last night BP's New York-listed shares staged a 9.5 per cent rebound on talk a rival could pounce. That followed a 16 per cent rout the evening before.







Disaster: BP clean-up crews rake a beach to rid it of oil seven weeks after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion. The disaster has wiped billions off BP's value

Dirty: A Greenpeace worker reveals the amount of oil on his hands after he has dipped them in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico

Angry: Protesters demonstrate against BP at a petrol station in Los Angeles. The company could end up seeking bankruptcy protection

Some investors now see the firm as a tempting target after it lost £55billion of value since the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico, which killed 11 workers.

Shares have now shed 44 per cent of their value since the disaster triggered the worst oil spill in American history. Yesterday the London-listed stock lost another 6.7 per cent to trade at 365.5p a share, wiping another £ 5billion off the value of the group.

BP is determined to resist any overtures from opportunistic bidders and many London-based shareholders argue it would be madness to sell out when the stock is at such depressed levels.

They insist they are optimistic about BP's capacity to rebound from the current crisis, arguing that its shares are now wildly undervalued.

One industry source said: 'BP will defend its independence.

'Any attempt to take it out at these (share price) levels or anything resembling them would be the height of opportunism.'

However, some industry players believe Washington's political assault could ultimately destroy the firm.

As a result, there is talk the company could seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S., offering BP some breathing space to sort out its affairs.

A far more likely outcome is the suspension of the dividend, allowing the firm to conserve more cash to pay out spill-related claims.

U.S. Department of Justice officials have said they are planning 'to take action' to make sure BP has enough cash to cover any compensation claims arising from the spill. This is also seen as a threat to the dividend, which has not been cut since 1992 and provides around £1 in every £6 of share payouts from UK blue-chip firms.

The company has so far refused to comment on the future of dividends, with the board due to make the decision at the end of July.

One suggestion last night was that BP could impose a voluntary moritorium on payments as a way of holding out an olive branch to its U.S. critics.

BP has said the cost of the clean-up and containment efforts had now hit £979million.

Alternatively, BP could end up falling prey to a bid from deep-pocketed rivals.

The firm's shares are now worth £68billion, compared with £123billion before the leak. This makes it far more digestible than it used to be.

Only a few global companies are seen as packing the firepower needed to digest a company of BP's size and complexity, however.

Three more likely candidates are seen as ExxonMobil of the U.S., Anglo-Dutch giant Royal Dutch Shell, and Beijing-controlled PetroChina.

Yet none of these bids would be easy to pull off.

Exxon has vast financial muscle and its American provenance will appeal to politicians who have been banging the anti-British drum.

But Exxon's overlaps with BP's U.S. business could trigger competition concerns.

Royal Dutch Shell is BP's closest European rival, and the two firms contemplated a tie-up under former BP boss Lord Browne.

But Shell may decide it has enough on its plate without assuming vast Gulf liabilities.

This could leave outsiders such as state-owned PetroChina of China as potential bidders.

PetroChina recently overtook Exxon as the world's most valuable company and it enjoys the backing of the Beijing state.

But the prospect of a British-owned firm with a huge American workforce being swallowed up by a Chinese-controlled one would be difficult to accepfor jingoistic Washington politicians.

Beleagured BP faces potential destruction unless David Cameron can persuade President Obama to scale down his increasingly inflammatory rhetoric.

It is hoped the Prime Minister's reluctance to publicly criticise the American 'lynch mob' - currently revelling in anti-British attacks - conceals private moves to stop one of Britain's most important businesses going under.

Since the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon platform in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, the stock market value of BP has plunged by £ 55billion.

This is the biggest loss of value at a top-ranked British enterprise since 84 per cent of the Royal Bank of Scotland was taken into state ownership in the autumn of 2008.

By driving BP towards the abyss the White House risks not just demolishing the Anglo-American relationship, but ruining the best chance of cleaning up the mess and providing sufficient compensation to the victims of the catastrophe.

Despite the pressures on BP and its virtually unseen board during this crisis, the company has a determination to keep going - despite numerous failed attempts to plug the leak.

On a business front, it is dismissing talk about placing BP America into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. This was the course taken by the oil group Texaco in 1987 (after a legal dispute over a failed takeover) and General Motors last year.

The difference this time is that those companies could not pay their wage bills and creditors. But BP - with its cash flow generation of more than £20billion - has the resources to limp on.

What is certain, however, is if the Cameron coalition fails to silence the verbal abuse and threats of steep financial penalties from President Obama and Congress this great company could be killed by a thousand cuts, which would be an enormous blow to Britain's economy.

The nation's pension and insurance funds - which receive £1 in every £6 of dividend income from their holdings in BP shares - would take a huge hit.

Just as seriously the Exchequer would lose the £6billion of corporation tax incurred by BP last year, the single largest UK taxpayer.

So what kind of deal could be cooked up by Cameron, BP and the Obama presidency to end the increasingly hostile stand-off?

BP's most tangible bargaining chip is the dividend it pays to shareholders. The ugly mood in America suggests it would be dangerous to pay out under current circumstances when those damaged by the spill - from Louisiana to Florida - are screaming for blood.
Tony Hayward, the beleaguered BP chief executive, and his team have several options open to them.

The dividend payments - which have so enraged Congress and state politicians in the Gulf region - could be suspended until the leak has been plugged after the reserve well is operational in August (if that goal is achieved).

BP could also offer to put the dividend in 'escrow' - a trust account held by a bank - only to be paid at a future date when everyone has a better handle on the full costs and legal liabilities of the spill.

If the company wanted to make some kind of gesture to investors - who are already suffering serious pain as a result of the loss of value of their holdings - it could offer them scrip (free) shares in lieu of a cash payout.

BP is determined to fight for its independence until the bitter end.

Reports, for instance, that state-controlled PetroChina might make an opportunistic bid for the company are almost certainly fanciful.

Some 40 per cent of BP's oil assets are in America following its takeovers of Sohio in the 1980s and Amoco and Arco in 2000.

The one thing the U.S. has made absolutely clear is that it will not allow Chinese companies to take over American strategic assets.

Recently it blocked an attempted Chinese bid for the far smaller and weaker Unocal petroleum concern.

More likely bidders would be its European rival Royal Dutch Shell or the American giant ExxonMobil - which has been working alongside BP in the Gulf of Mexico in seeking to end the spillage.

However both companies might be fearful of the unknown legal liabilities that may arise as the quixotic state courts and their juries start making judgments against BP.

What is absolutely clear is that gaffe-prone Tony Hayward, who has rapidly become the most hated man in the U.S., will not personally survive this disaster.

He will not be sacked in mid-battle when his geological and engineering knowledge are vital to resolving the crisis.

But investors are certain to demand his head - after a calamitous public performance - when and if the immediate crisis comes to an end.