WASHINGTON/PORT FOURCHON, La., (Reuters) – Executives from BP Plc and other companies involved in a deadly Gulf of Mexico offshore oil well blowout blamed each other in Washington yesterday as troops and prison inmates rushed to shore up Louisiana’s coast against a huge oil slick.
The oil bosses were grilled on safety practices by members of the Senate Energy Committee, with committee chairman Jeff Bingaman saying it appeared the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig that triggered the oil slick was due to a “cascade of errors, technical, human and regulatory.”
The hearings are set to continue today, the same day a group of activists called Seize BP plans demonstrations at the company’s offices and other sites across the United States to demand the government freeze its assets to ensure payment for the cleanup and compensation for those hurt by the spill.
BP’s stock ended down 0.67 percent in London and its American Depositary Receipts fell 0.12 percent in New York.
The shares have fallen more than 15 percent since the rig blast on April 20, wiping more than $30 billion from its market value. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said President Barack Obama is “deeply frustrated” that the oil leak in the Gulf has not yet been stopped three weeks after the blast.
There are fears it could become the worst oil spill in U.S. history with staggering ecological and economic consequences for fisheries, beaches, wildlife and tourism in at least four states.
BP spokesman Daren Beaudo said that some oil had begun washing on the Louisiana shoreline.
Beaudo, who took reporters on a boat tour, said oil had washed ashore at three locations: Dauphin Island, Alabama; the Chandeleur Islands off Louisiana; and the South Pass-Port Eads area on a remote stretch of Louisiana’s mainland.
