Offshore Oil Drilling, Gulf Oil Spill | featured news

BP said today its attempt to place a new cap on its ruptured undersea well was proceeding as planned. But while robots replace the old cap, crude is flowing freely.

Robert Dudley, who will take charge of BP’s spill response, has plenty of experience dealing with a hostile government, unhappy partners and angry citizens.

A co-chairman of the commission that will study the oil spill said it would probably not lift the moratorium on deepwater drilling until next year.

A day after its chief executive's widely panned appearance before Congress, BP said Friday that it would replace Tony Hayward as head of its oil-spill cleanup effort.

In prepared testimony before a House panel that is expected to question him harshly Thursday, BP chief executive Tony Hayward says the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico "never should have happened" and has left him ...

The president says he'll discuss how BP must pay claims "fairly and quickly" to compensate oil spill victims. He also says he'll name separate commanders for Florida, Alabama and Louisiana to speed response to states' residents.

President Obama previewed part of his Oval Office address in an appearance here Tuesday morning, saying he will talk about the need for BP to pay out claims "quickly and fairly'' to compensate victims of the worst environmental disaster in U.S.

The  cost of cleaning the Gulf oil spill and compensating its victims won’t be known for years.

Government scientists say as many as 40,000 barrels of oil per day have been gushing into the gulf. BP has said the blown-out well will not be plugged before August.

Government scientists said Thursday that as many as 40,000 barrels of oil have been flowing daily from the blown-out BP well, doubling earlier estimates and greatly expanding the scope of what is already the largest spill in U.S.

"According to serious studies, the middle-term survival rate of oil-soaked birds is under 1 percent," says Silvia Gaus, a biologist at the Wattenmeer National Park along the North Sea in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein.

Is President Obama bowing to criticism that he hasn't shown enough emotion and outrage about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill? In an interview with the "Today" show's Matt Lauer on Tuesday morning, the president offered his bluntest response yet about the disaster, telling Lauer he's been talking to experts about "whose ass to kick" when it comes to responsibility for the mess.