Energy giant BP has said it will pay 'all necessary and appropriate clean-up costs' from the US oil pollution disaster.
'BP takes responsibility for responding to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. We will clean it up,' said a statement today.
Oil from beneath a rig which exploded and overturned in the Gulf of Mexico has formed a huge slick now coming ashore on the US Gulf coast.
The cost has been estimated at several billion dollars.
'BP has established a robust process to manage claims resulting from the Deepwater Horizon incident,' said the statement posted on a site devoted to the official response to the disaster.
'BP will pay all necessary and appropriate clean-up costs.'
The company said it was 'committed to pay legitimate and objectively verifiable claims for other loss and damage caused by the spill.'
'This may include claims for assessment, mitigation and clean up of spilled oil, real and property damage caused by the oil, personal injury caused by the spill, commercial losses including loss of earnings/profit and other losses as contemplated by applicable laws and regulations.'
US President Barack Obama fiercely defended his response to the oil slick disaster yesterday, stressing that BP was fully responsible and must pay for the cleanup.
Mr Obama described the unfolding nightmare offshore as ‘a massive and potentially unprecedented environmental disaster’.
‘The oil that is still leaking from the well could seriously damage the economy and the environment of our Gulf states. And it could extend for a long time. It could jeopardize the livelihoods of thousands of Americans who call this place home.’
Mr Obama laid the responsibility for the disaster firmly at the door of BP, which owns the leaking well and operated the stricken rig.
Louisiana's $2.4bn a year commercial and recreational fishing industry was dealt its first major blow from the oil spill during Mr Obama's visit when the US government banned activities in some areas for at least 10 days due to health concerns.
US government data showed the thickest part of the sprawling 200 by 100km slick has been turned northward by strong southerly winds, sending sheen lapping ashore on the remote Chandeleur Islands.
The chain of uninhabited islets in eastern Louisiana is prime marsh and wildlife area, but officials said confirmation of any oil washing ashore would not be known until overflights could be conducted.
An overflight may not be possible for some time as blustery winds and high seas kept planes grounded and forced skimming vessels to abandon missions to mop up the growing slick for a third straight day.
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who has been scathing of BP's response, warned on Saturday that his state's ‘way of life’ is under threat as fishermen and coastal communities struggling back to their feet after 2005's Hurricane Katrina brace for yet more hardship.
BP's head of US operations, Lamar McKay, suggested a giant dome could be deployed as early as next week to try and contain the spill.
With relief wells taking three months and the underwater submarines making no progress in activating the blowout preventer on the sea floor, the dome could be the all-important factor in shutting off the oil.
Using remote-controlled submarines to shut off the leaking oil well in the Gulf of Mexico is like doing ‘open heart surgery at 5,000 feet in the dark,’ he said Sunday.
Mr McKay acknowledged that the oil gushing from the fractured well nearly a mile below the ocean surface was due to defective equipment designed to shut down the well in a blowout.
An estimated 210,000 gallons of crude has been streaming each day from the wellhead below the Deepwater Horizon rig that sank on 22 April, two days after a massive explosion that killed 11 workers.
