Gulf Oil Spill Just Latest Black Mark on BP's Reputation in America

By Terry Macalister, Guardian

Tony Hayward, BP's chief executive, will be made to work for his £4 million salary this year as the boss of Britain's biggest oil company stands up to its biggest crisis since the Texas City refinery fire in 2005 killed 15 workers and scorched the firm's reputation in the U.S.

The latest rig explosion threatens to link BP with an environmental accident that some are speculating could be worse than the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Texas City, Alaskan pipeline fractures and damage to another offshore platform, Thunder Horse, all turned BP into one of America's least liked firms and helped trigger the premature departure of former boss John Browne. 

Hayward has been slowly trying to rebuild BP's image as a responsible and caring employer with its eye on safety and technical excellence rather than corporate takeovers and glossy green spin, of which critics accused Browne.

The future view of BP will depend on what unfolds in the next days and weeks as the company tries to stem the oil, which is spilling into the Gulf of Mexico from the site of the rig explosion at an estimated 5,000 barrels a day and which could eventually threaten beaches.

But the real test will come when a spate of investigations by U.S. government agencies conclude whether any blame can be attached to BP for the demise of the Transocean Deepwater Horizon rig.

City investors are already panicking, even though BP said there was no reason to presume Exxon Valdez-scale environmental damage.

No doubt there will be some who fear BP will be guilty until proven innocent in the court of public opinion. As recently as last October it was fined over £50 million by the U.S. occupational health and safety administration for ongoing safety problems at Texas City.

The Latest

By Chris McGreal, Terry Macalister and Adam Gabbatt

The United States mobilized its military today in an attempt to help deal with the vast oil slick spreading across the Gulf of Mexico amid predictions that it will begin to hit the Louisiana coast within hours and could cause one of the country's biggest environmental disasters.

The U.S. Coast Guard said today that oil was flowing into the sea at five times the rate previously estimated.

The government has taken broad control of efforts to contain the spill from last week's blowout on the Deepwater Horizon rig, with the White House saying it had imposed "oversight" of BP's efforts and is pursuing an "aggressive" response that includes mobilizing naval ships. Louisiana has declared a state of emergency, and the White House said President Obama and the joint chiefs of staff were being briefed regularly on the situation.

Today, Obama said the British company was "ultimately responsible" for the spill.

The reassessment of the scale of the disaster, which came after a third leak was discovered, sent BP's share price plunging.

Under U.S. law, the company is responsible for the costs of dealing with the crisis, including paying for use of the military.

Environmentalists warned that the spill, which covers an area about the size of Cornwall and is just a few miles off the Mississippi river delta, could turn out to be as catastrophic as the impact of the Exxon Valdez tanker spill off Alaska was 21 years ago.