The head of the company at the heart of a devastating oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico vowed Sunday to remain in his post until the leak is plugged and the region is restored "to the position it was in prior to this event."
BP PLC chief executive Tony Hayward said he would not be stepping down from his job despite recently complaining that he wants his life back as the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history drags on.
Hayward told the BBC's "Andrew Marr Show" that he has the "absolute intention of seeing this through to the end."
"We are going to stop the leak. We're going to clean up the oil, we're going to remediate any environmental damage and we are going to return the Gulf coast to the position it was in prior to this event," Hayward said. "That's an absolute commitment, we will be there long after the media has gone, making good on our promises."
Hours after Hayward spoke, BP spokesperson Mark Proegler announced that a containment cap placed over the leaking well off the coast of Louisiana trapped 1.67 million litres of oil on Saturday. That was up from the 946,000 litres collected on Friday, but still short of the suspected 1.9 to 3.8 million litres of crude leaking into the ocean each day.
Hayward said the cap, combined with a second containment system the company hopes will be in place by next weekend, will collect "the vast majority of the oil."
Hayward also said engineers will attempt to close vents on the cap that are allowing some oil to escape. Officials kept those vents open in an effort to prevent ice crystals from forming on the cap, a problem that scuttled earlier efforts to stop the leak.
While BP officials had an optimistic outlook on the nearly seven-week ordeal, the U.S. government's point man on the crisis held a different view.
U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen told CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday that progress is being made, "but I don't think anybody should be pleased as long as there is oil in the water."
Numerous efforts to contain the leak have failed since April 20, when the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank, killing 11 workers and rupturing a well about 1.6 kilometres below the water.
Gulf Coast residents have grown increasingly frustrated with both BP and the U.S. government as millions of litres of oil have poured into the ocean and covered sensitive marshland, wildlife and beaches in slick crude.
At Barataria Bay on the Louisiana coast, Pelicans have struggled to open their beaks and spread their wings under a thick coat of oil, while dead birds and dolphins continue to wash ashore.
In Alabama, a putrid mix of seaweed and oil has washed up along the oceanfront, while in Florida, oil-slicked waves have littered tar balls along the famed white-sand beaches, which have been stained yellow and brown.
Dave Marino, a firefighter and fishing guide from Myrtle Grove, La., decried the damage to the water and wildlife.
"I don't want to say heartbreaking, because that's been said," Marino told the Associated Press. "It's a nightmare. It looks like it's going to be wave after wave of it and nobody can stop it."
Hayward said the spill had between a one-in-100,000 and a one-in-a-million chance of occurring, and pointed out that "seven layers of protection were breached."
Hayward denied the crisis proves the oil industry is operating beyond its technical abilities, saying in more than 20 years of deep-water drilling the industry has never contended with such an incident.
But he did concede that in the wake of the crisis, oil companies will have to "move safety standards to a completely different level."
