BP attaches oil cap, waits nervously
British energy company BP said Friday it would take about 48 hours before it could say how much oil was being captured by a cap placed over a ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico. Remote-controlled submarines lowered a cap onto the leak. Meanwhile, BP is facing 180 class action suits and US President Barack Obama has postponed a trip to Australia and Indonesia.
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Chief executive Tony Howard told investors that it was impossible to say how much the spill would cost.
Meanwhile, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said the US military has no expertise in this area.
Ben Aylisse, London
Between 22 and 36 million gallons of oil have leaked into the sea since BP's Deepwater Horizon rig exploded.
BP says it is optimistic its latest attempt to cap the flow is its surest one yet.
“BP have sounded confident about the last five attempts that they’ve made to cap the well and none of them have worked,” Greenpeace campaigner Ben Aylisse told RFI.
“BP’s drive for these increasingly hard to get sources of oil do carry enormous environmental and human and economic risks. What we’re seeing is a direct result of BP’s attempts to get as much as they can out of the planet.”
US President Barack Obama has postponed a trip to Australia and Indonesia. It is the second time the president's trip to Indonesia has been delayed because of the oil spill.
Reports say Obama will be visiting India in November.
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