The Deepwater Horizon spill, which is threatening swaths of the Gulf of Mexico’s coast, again raises questions about how rigorously safety and environmental regulations are enforced
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- Tim Webb
- The Observer, Sunday 2 May 2010
Washington, 5am, Tuesday: a tired Tony Hayward, chief executive of BP, was finally patched on to the conference call. At the other end, a dozen journalists sat around a boardroom table at its plush headquarters in St James’s Square, London and leant in towards the squawkbox. BP had just announced a 135% increase in profits for the first quarter, but all that anyone wanted to discuss was the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
A sombre Hayward, who had spent the weekend co-ordinating the operation to contain the slick off the coast of Louisiana, recognised as much when he began the call: “Clearly a good set of results has been overshadowed by events.”