85 to 5492 pence on the London Stock Exchange in a 5

The Bill for the oil spill continues to increase for BP. Yesterday, the British group said that the cost of the means that it has implemented to protect the coasts and seal leaks of oil already amounted to 350 million dollars (270 million euros).

This figure is much higher than the first estimate put forward by the oil group: the order of 6 million per day, for a total of $ 120 million since the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil platform on April 20.

This bad news weighed on the title, which declined by 0.85, to 549,2 pence on the London Stock Exchange in a 5.16 market. In total, the course of BP dropped about 16 since the accident. Some 30 billion dollars of funding went to smoke, but group is still 152 billion dollars in stock.

Yesterday, BP has also suffered the failure of his attempt to lay a submarine "lid" on the main leak this weekend.The company will try to install a second smaller lid within 72 hours. Failing that, the time required for tackling oil spills will be significantly increased. It takes three months to dig a well in relief for boucher the first leaks, via the injection of chemicals.

Lowering of the note

In this context, the optimistic estimates on the costs of the spill last week by several analysts appear unrealistic. Some had referred to a BP impact limited to a few hundreds of millions of dollars. In contrast, Bernstein & Co stated a maximum amount of $ 8.5 billion supported by BP, on a global cost of cleaning that could exceed $ 12 billion... Alone, the drilling of a well of relief requires the order of $ 150 million, according to Citi.

This uncertainty has prompted credit rating agencies to review their assessments. Yesterday, Moody's lowered the perspective of the note by BP from "stable" to "negative", thus aligning with the position taken by Standard & Poor's Friday. "The uncertainties related to the responsibility, to the cost of cleaning and the extent of the damage associated with the oil spill in the Gulf of the Mexico will weigh for years on the credit profiles of BP and companies involved in the project," said Moody's in a research note.

Last week, a text was tabled in both houses of Congress to raise the ceiling of compensation payable by the oil companies of 75 million to... 10 billion in damage. With $ 6.8 billion in cash to 31 March and several billion dollars loan facilities, BP has the means to cope with a change of legislation.

For its part, the owner of the platform, the Transocean company, indicated that it had provisioned 200 million to cope with the foreseeable costs of this disaster. Well, the Cameron group security provider, may also be implicated, and the Halliburton Company.

Washington, the US Congress prepares a series of hearings to understand the causes and assess the responsibilities of BP, Cameron, Halliburton and the administration. The pattern of BP America, Lamar McKay, today will answer the questions of the elect before the Committee on energy and natural resources of the Senate.