Gulf of Mexico oil spill: timeline
The rig is owned and operated by Transocean, a company hired by BP to carry
out the drilling work.
April 22
The US Coast Guard estimates that the rig is leaking oil at the rate of up to
8,000 barrels a day. Two remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROVs) are
sent down to attempt to cap the well, but prove unsuccessful.
Another
two ROVs are dispatched in an attempt to activate the blowout preventer
a giant series of pipes and valves that could staunch the leak but again
prove unsuccessful.
April 27
BP reports that its first-quarter profits more than double to £3.65 billion following
a rise in oil prices.
April 30
City analysts including Morgan Stanley predict that the
disaster could cost BP between £1 billion and £3 billion as
shrimpers in the state of Louisiana file the first class-action lawsuits
against BP and the platforms owners.
May 3
Work begins on a drilling a relief well to isolate the leak as Tony Hayward,
BPs chief executive, indicates that the firm will seek compensation from
Transocean.
The slump in BP share prices reaches 15 per cent as some experts predict the
total compensation and clean-up bill could
be around £10.6 billion.
One of the biggest oil containment operations ever attempted begins, with a
flotilla of nearly 200 boats sent to tackle the spill.
May 10
BP admits it has dramatically underestimated the cost of the leak and that it
has already reached around
£240 million.
May 12
James Dupree, BP’s senior vice president for the Gulf, admits during
congressional hearings in the US that a safety valve protecting the oil well failed
a key pressure test just hours before the explosion.
May 17
Shares rise as BP says it is capturing
about a fifth of the estimated oil gushing from the ruptured well by
using a pipe to divert it from the sea bed onto a ship.
May 18
Mr Hayward claims the environmental impact of the spill will be “very,
very modest”. His reassurances coincide with the discovery of the
first tar balls from the spill off Florida.
Experts begin to fear that currents could be directing a slick the size of
Luxembourg towards US coastal areas.
The US government announces it is nearly tripling the size of an area in the
Gulf of Mexico that is closed
to fishing.
May 28
BP
attempts a top kill operation to plug the spill. The
company admits that the procedure has never before been attempted at such
depths and its ultimate success is uncertain.
The total cost to the firm reaches around £638 million as Barack Obama states
that BP would “pay every dime” for the damage caused and
criticised the “cosy and sometimes corrupt” relationship between
regulators and the oil industry.
June 1
BP shares tumble a further 15 per cent after it admits its top
kill operation was unsuccessful. It emerges that the company has
lost a quarter £30 billion of its market value since the explosion.
Meanwhile, documents emerge showing that the firm was given permission to
drill in the Gulf of Mexico after promising it was equipped
to deal with a spill 10 times larger than the current leak.
Eric Holder, the US Attorney General, announces he will visit the site of the
spill for the first time on Tuesday, increasing speculation that a criminal
investigation will be launched.
June 7
BP says a second containment system to stem the leak should
be ready by “mid-June”, as costs of the clean-up rise to £860
million and the total share-price slump reaches 30 per cent.
June 8
Norway
bans new deepwater oil drilling in the North Sea in a sign that panic
over BP’s Gulf of Mexico spill is spreading.
Meanwhile the US President attacks Mr Hayward, saying he should have been
sacked for tactless comments made after the spill.
June 9
BP buys the top Google and Yahoo! search result for terms like “oil spill”
in
a bid to recover its public image.
Obama is accused of holding
“his boot on the throat” of British pensioners after his
attacks on BP are blamed for wiping billions off the company’s value.
The firm’s share price falls a further 17.35p to 391.55p representing a 40
per cent drop on the 655p price of a share two months ago.
June 10
The US government signals it will take
legal action to force BP to stop paying a dividend to shareholders. The
company’s shares
tumble.