When leading BP executives met President Obama on 16 June and faced the media shortly afterwards, a BBC correspondent covering the event remarked that they "looked like they were waiting to be shot". That's probably a fate some Americans think they should face. Rarely has a global corporation faced such political and public opprobrium in the US.
As a result of the failure of a blow-out preventer on 20 April, the Deepwater Horizon rig was destroyed and the Macondo well-head, almost a mile beneath the surface, began spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Estimates of the rate at which it is doing so have risen from an initial 5,000 barrels a day to as high as 60,000 barrels a day. By comparison, the entire average daily output across all the assets of Dana Petroleum (a North Sea operator with a market value of £1bn) was 38,700 barrels a day in 2009.
BP has agreed to pay a total of $20bn (£13.5bn) into a escrow fund over the next three years to compensate those affected, and to suspend dividend payments for the remainder of 2010 - meaning three out of four of its quarterly dividends will not be paid. The escrow fund will be secured against its US asset base, and excludes fines and penalties.
This page aims to provide comprehensive coverage of the Deepwater Horizon from the point of view of the UK investor: how the shares will be affected, whether to buy them for recovery, and where to go to replace the dividend income lost.
Articles already published:
■ BP news page: latest share price information plus news headlines from the Financial Times, analysis from Investors Chronicle, and announcements from the company itself.
■ : the blue-chip index would be up a lot more but for the crisis
■ Should you sell your BP shares?
