Engineers were forced yet again to reconfigure plans to execute their latest gambit to control the Gulf of Mexico gusher. BP PLC planned 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 U.S. history.
BP PLC's top executive acknowledged the global oil giant was unprepared to fight a catastrophic deepwater oil spill. Chief Executive Tony Hayward told The Financial Times it was "an entirely fair criticism" to say the company had not been fully prepared for a deepwater oil leak. Hayward 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 published in Thursday's edition of the London-based newspaper.
INVESTIGATION
It's virtually certain that BP and other companies involved in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill will face criminal charges and civil penalties that could translate into hundreds of millions of dollars in fines. But for any company executives or workers to be indicted individually, legal experts say the Justice Department will have to find evidence they orchestrated a coverup, destroyed key documents or lied to government agents. Prosecutors could seek serious jail time — five years or more — if they charge anyone with obstruction of justice, making false statements to the FBI or other U.S. officials or conspiracy to hinder a federal probe. But there's got to be evidence that a person was aware of the wrongdoing, well beyond mere negligence or incompetence, experts said.
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