Oil Spill, Gulf Of Mexico | featured news

BP Chief Executive Bob Dudley accused some politicians and the media on Monday of being too hasty to pin all the blame on his company for the devastating Gulf of Mexico spill - and emphasized the need for deep-water drilling.

Months after the nation’s worst oil disaster, the Obama administration will lift its moratorium on deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, the White House announced Tuesday morning.

Oil giant BP PLC said in an internal report posted on its website Wednesday morning that multiple companies and work teams contributed to the massive Gulf of Mexico spill that fouled waters and shorelines for months.

With the replacement of the failed blowout preventer and a cement plug in place, the well's seal is almost permanent, the federal spill response chief says. The final step will be to plug the well from the bottom.

An offshore oil rig has exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, west of the site of the April blast that caused a massive oil spill.

A newly discovered type of oil-eating microbe is suddenly flourishing in the Gulf of Mexico.

BP Plc said on Friday it has completed a pressure test on its blown-out Gulf of Mexico well and those results are under review by government scientists and the British oil company.

BP PLC says it may in the future drill in the same Gulf of Mexico oil reservoir that blew its top and caused one of the world's worst spills. Officials said Friday at a news briefing in New Orleans that the company hasn't closed the door to tapping the reservoir again. Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles says "there's lots of oil and gas here." He says "we're going to have to think about what to do with that at some point."

BP claimed a key victory Wednesday in the effort to plug its blown-out well as a government report said much of the spilled oil is gone — though what's left is still nearly five times the amount that poured from the Exxon Valdez.

Only about 26 percent of the oil from the Deepwater Horizon leak is still in the water or onshore, and most of it is diluted and breaking down rapidly, officials say.