BP Oil Spill & Cost

By: Jennifer Hong
05/04/2010 09:37 AM ET

BP oil spill & cost for the Deepwater Horizon clean-up could total at least $12.5 billion. Efforts to contain the leak in the Gulf of Mexico are hitting the company with about $2 million per day. British Petroleum (BP) said that more than 250,000 gallons of crude are leaking into the Gulf per day.

“BP takes responsibility for responding to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. We will clean it up,” BP said in a statement. The company also said that it will pay all necessary and appropriate clean-up expenses. The total amount could be 80 percent more than the price of the Exxon Valdez Alaskian cargo accident in 1989.

British Petroleum plans to place a steel dome to cover the leak on Tuesday. All other attempts to plug the leak have failed. The Deepwater Horizon accident is threatening to create an environmental disaster on the southern shores around the Gulf.

The oil company launched a drilling operation to seal the leaking well on Sunday. The leak is about 13,000 feet below the ocean floor in the Gulf. BP said that drilling on the relief well could take about three months.

“Whilst difficult to accurately estimate, the cost to the MC252 owners of the efforts to contain the spill and secure the well is currently estimated to be more than six million dollars per day,” BP said in a statement.

BP leased the Deepwater Horizon is a drilling platform that blew up and sank earlier this month. British Petroleum leased the rig from Houston-based contractor Transocean. The accident killed 11 workers and left a well gushing thousands of barrels of sweet crude per day into the Gulf of Mexico.