{"id":6894,"date":"2010-06-13T01:44:22","date_gmt":"2010-06-12T22:44:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/?p=6894"},"modified":"2010-06-13T01:44:22","modified_gmt":"2010-06-12T22:44:22","slug":"us-increases-pressure-on-bp-over-gulf-oil-leak-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/us-increases-pressure-on-bp-over-gulf-oil-leak-strategy\/","title":{"rendered":"US increases pressure on BP over Gulf oil leak strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"burning-oil-bp\"A top US Coast Guard official has said that BP’s plans to contain oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico from a blown-out well do not go far enough.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rear Adm James Watson gave the oil firm 48 hours to identify “additional leak containment capacity”.<\/p>\n

The warning follows new US government data suggesting the flow of oil could be double previous estimates.<\/p>\n

Speaking to UK PM David Cameron by phone, President Barack Obama said his criticism of BP was not anti-British.<\/p>\n

In a letter to the oil firm, Rear Adm Watson said: “Because those estimates have now been revised and estimate a substantially higher flow of oil from the Macado 252 well, it is clear that additional capacity is urgently needed.”<\/p>\n

The letter was dated 11 June and released on Saturday.<\/p>\n

“BP must identify in the next 48 hours additional leak containment capacity that could be operationalised and expedited,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I am concerned that your current plans do not provide for maximum mobilisation of resources to provide the needed collection capacity consistent with revised flow estimates.”<\/p>\n

The letter was a response to BP plans to contain the spill in a multi-phase operation taking a number of weeks.<\/p>\n

Oil has been leaking into the Gulf since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on 20 April and sank off the coast of the US state of Louisiana, killing 11 workers.<\/p>\n

A team of scientists put together by the US government and co-ordinated by the US Geological Survey has estimated that 20-40,000 barrels of oil a day were leaking into the Gulf of Mexico before a containment cap was placed on 3 June.<\/p>\n

BP has said the device was collecting about 15,000 barrels of oil a day last week.<\/p>\n

Last month, BP was estimating the leak to be the equivalent of just over 5,000 barrels per day.<\/p>\n

BP’s chairman has been asked to meet Barack Obama next week, amid assurances from the UK and US that bilateral ties will not be affected by the crisis.<\/p>\n

In a telephone call with British Prime Minister David Cameron on Saturday, Mr Obama said criticism of BP over the oil spill has “nothing to do with national identity”.<\/p>\n

A statement from Mr Cameron’s office said: “The president made it clear that he had no interest in undermining BP’s value.”<\/p>\n

Mr Obama has referred to BP by its former name, British Petroleum.<\/p>\n

Some British businessmen have accused the US of “anti-British” language following Mr Obama’s blunt criticism of the firm.<\/p>\n

BBC business editor Robert Peston has said BP is likely to bow to US pressure and suspend dividends to shareholders.<\/p>\n

The oil giant has confirmed its directors will meet on Monday to discuss the possibility.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US Coast Guard official has said that BP’s plans to contain oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,63,107],"tags":[629,9197,9504,7279],"class_list":["post-6894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-daily","category-health","tag-barack-obama","tag-bp","tag-british-prime-minister-david-cameron","tag-gulf-of-mexico"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6894\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}