Vice-president Joe Biden’s associates have resumed discussions about a 2016 presidential run after largely shelving such deliberations while his son was sick and dying earlier this year.

DISASTERS like the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig could happen again without significant reform, according to the conclusions of a presidential panel that has the companies involved in the nation’s largest offshore oil spill pointing fingers at each other again.

Decisions intended to save time and money created an unreasonable risk that triggered the largest offshore oil spill in US history, which could happen again without significant reforms, the top-level panel probing the BP blowout said tonight.

BP said today the cement sealing the wrecked oil well in the Gulf of Mexico had hardened as crews prepared for the final phase of drilling a relief well to end to one of America’s worst oil spills.