Oil major BP found itself furiously back-pedalling over yet another public-relations blunder when one of its officials said that the company was again considering drilling for offshore oil near the very site of the Deepwater Horizon rig from which vast amounts of oil spewed into the Gulf of Mexico for over three months.
The Associated Press quoted BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles as saying that BP might drill again someday into the same undersea reservoir of oil, which is still believed to hold nearly $4 billion worth of crude. “There's lots of oil and gas here... We are going to have to think about what to do with that at some point,” Mr. Suttles reportedly said.
However late on Friday evening, BP issued another statement, emphasising that it would, at this time, focus on killing the well and on the recovery of the Gulf coastline, not on future drilling in the offshore reservoir.
The company said in a statement that its "present focus is entirely on the response effort in the Gulf of Mexico and the future use of the reservoir is not currently under consideration".
The controversy follows a string of gaffes that caused public anger, particularly comments by former BP CEO Tony Hayward, which underplayed the significance of the oil spill and the environmental damage it has caused.
The latest episode occurred even as BP finally succeeded in completing cementing operations at the ruptured wellhead, as part of the "static kill" procedure. The company said it was also continuing with relief well operations, and "depending upon weather conditions, mid-August is the current estimate of the most likely date by which the first relief well will intercept the Macondo well annulus".
