Monday, May 3, 2010

The British oil company BP has said it will pay the cleanup costs from a severe oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

In a statement on its website posted earlier today, BP pledged to take responsibility for cleaning up after the Deepwater Horizon oil well ruptured, adding it would pay what it called “legitimate and objectively verifiable” compensation for claims of damage or injury.

“We are responsible, not for the accident, but we are responsible for the oil and for dealing with it and cleaning the situation up,” said BP chief executive Tony Hayward on the TV show Good Morning America, claiming the company was not at fault for the collapse of the oil rig itself, whose equipment was provided by another company, Transocean.

Transocean spokesman Guy Cantwell responded by saying: “We will await all the facts before drawing conclusions and we will not speculate.”

The Deepwater Horizon exploded on April 20 and killed eleven workers. The cause of the disaster is not known.