BP chief executive Tony Hayward admitted in comments that the oil giant had not been prepared for a deepwater leak, as its latest bid to contain the Gulf of Mexico spill hit a snag.
“What is undoubtedly true is that we did not have the tools you would want in your tool kit,” Hayward told the Financial Times newspaper.
Although he said BP had been “very successful” in keeping oil away from the coast, he accepted it was “an entirely fair criticism” to say the firm had not been fully prepared for a deep-water oil leak.
“After the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989, the industry created the Marine Spill Response Corporation to contain oil on the surface… The issue will be to create the same sub-sea response capability,” he said.
The oil spill caused by an April 20 explosion at the Deepwater Horizon rig, which killed 11 workers, is closing in on the Florida coast.
BP’s latest effort to contain the spill, now the worst in U.S. history, involved using a saw to cut through the fractured riser pipe, but this became stuck.