BP prepared to meet spill costs

‘Our asset base is strong and valuable, with more than 18 billion barrels of proved reserves and 63 billion barrels of resources,’ said Hayward. ‘All of this gives us significant flexibility in dealing with the costs of this incident.’

The company said in a statement that it has already spent over $1bn in gross direct costs for the response, clean-up and relief wells. It added that spending at this rate is expected to continue beyond successful completion of work to stop the flow of oil from the damaged well and that any fines and penalties would present additional costs.

Similarly, the costs of containment, removal and clean up are likely to be largely complete in 2010 but longer-term costs of environmental remediation, claims and litigation are hard to predict and will be spread over many years.

Earlier this week, US Senators Charles E Schumer and Ron Wyden wrote an open letter to Hayward expressing concerns over possible dividend payments to shareholders prior to knowing the full cost of the clean-up.