BP bosses weathered a week of anger in Washington but the energy giant's financial outlook faces renewed scrutiny from investors trying to gauge remaining costs and risks from the biggest oil spill in US history.
International ratings agency Moody’s announced it is downgrading its credit ratings on BP by three notches, reflecting ‘the worsening impact’ of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill on the group's finances.
Credit ratings agency Standard & Poor's have already poured cold water on hopes a $20 billion spill fund paid for by BP would limit its liabilities. It downgraded BP yesterday, citing the fund as a competitive disadvantage and saying it could downgrade again if costs from the huge undersea leak grow.
BP shares ended down 0.6% in London after earlier making positive gains.
BP collected 25,000 barrels of oil from its blown-out Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico yesterday, US Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen said on Friday.
Allen, the top U.S. spill official, said the ‘most probable’ flow rate from the well is 35,000 barrels per day (bpd), but that the rate could be as high as 60,000 bpd.
From a mile below the water's surface, crude oil is still gushing into the Gulf of Mexico 60 days after the disaster began. BP is siphoning some of the oil from the blown-out well using a containment cap system and is drilling relief wells it hopes will halt the leak in August.
Louisiana Treasurer John Kennedy estimates environmental and economic damage could range up to $100 billion for his state and others along the Gulf Coast.
Tony Hayward, BP's chief executive, survived a trip to the White House with his chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg to meet an angry President Barack Obama on Wednesday and then endured a verbal assault from lawmakers yesterday.
But Hayward's repeated answers that he could not explain the causes of the spill and wanted everyone to wait for the investigations left some in Congress calling for him to go.
The disaster has fouled at least 120 miles of US coastline, threatening multibillion-dollar fishing and tourism industries and killing birds, dolphins and other sea life.
Earlier this week executives from BP's rivals - Exxon Mobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Royal Dutch Shell - distanced themselves from BP at a congressional hearing, saying BP failed to adhere to industry standards in the construction of its gushing well in the Gulf of Mexico.
The undersea leak began with the explosion on an offshore rig on April 20 that killed 11 workers and ruptured BP's well, unleashing a torrent of crude into the Gulf of Mexico.
