BP: We weren' t ready for spill

BP’s top executive admitted today it was unprepared to fight a catastrophic deep water oil spill as engineers were forced yet again to rejig plans for their latest attempt to control the Gulf of Mexico blow-out.

They plan to use giant shears to cut a pipe a mile below the sea after a diamond-tipped saw became stuck halfway through the job.

It was another frustrating delay in six weeks of failed efforts to stop or at least curtail the worst oil spill in US history.

Once the riser pipe is cut, BP hopes to cap it and start pumping some crude to a surface tanker, which would reduce but not end the spill.

The next chance for stopping the flow will not come until two relief wells meant to plug the reservoir for good are finished in August, after an effort to staunch the gusher with heavy mud failed on Saturday.

BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward said it was “an entirely fair criticism” to say the company had not been fully prepared for a deep water oil leak. He called it “low-probability, high-impact” accident.

“What is undoubtedly true is that we did not have the tools you would want in your tool-kit,” Hayward said in an interview with the Financial Times.

The latest attempt to control the spill, the so-called cut-and-cap method, is considered risky because slicing away a section of the 20-inch-wide riser could remove kinks in the pipe and temporarily increase the flow of oil by as much as 20%.

Oil drifted perilously close to north-western Florida’s popular sugar-white beaches, and crews on the mainland were doing everything possible to limit the catastrophe.

The US government ordered BP to pay for five additional sand barrier projects in Louisiana at a cost of around $360m (€294m), on top of about $990m (€808m) it had spent so far on response and clean up, grants to four Gulf coast states and claims from people and companies hurt by the spill.

As the edge of the slick drifted within seven miles of Pensacola’s beaches, emergency workers rushed to link the last in a miles-long chain of booms designed to fend off the oil.

Forecasters said the oil would probably wash up by tomorrow, threatening a delicate network of islands, bays and white-sand beaches that are a haven for wildlife and a major tourist destination.

Florida’s beaches play a crucial role in the state’s tourism industry. At least 60% of holiday spending in the state during 2008 was in beach-front cities.