BP Head Says He's “Hopeful“

BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward tells Britain's BBC tv his company is well on its way to containing most of the oil leaking from the ill-fated well in the Gulf of Mexico.
            
[Tony Hayward, BP Chief Executive]:            
"We are optimising the operation. We have a further containment system to implement in the course of this coming week which will be in place by next weekend, so when those two are in place, we would very much hope to be containing the vast majority of the oil."
            
Public and political pressure has been mounting on BP to cap its gushing seabed oil well and take full financial responsibility for the clean up and damage caused to Gulf coast fisheries, wildlife and tourism.
            
This week U.S. President Barack Obama visited Louisiana, the state hardest hit by the oil slick, for the third time.
            
Obama again vowed to make sure that BP pay every single dime they owed to people affected by the disaster.
             
For their part, BP promised that they would uphold their commitment to clean up the damage.
            
[Tony Hayward, BP Chief Executive]:
"We are going to stop the leak, we are going to clean up the oil, we're going to remediate any environmental damage, and we're going to return the Gulf coast to the position it was in prior to this event. That's an absolute commitment, and we will be there long after the media has gone, making good on our promises."
            
The spill has been flowing since April 20, when an explosion on the BP Deepwater Horizon rig sank the platform and killed 11 workers.
            
BP has lost more than a third of its market value, around $67 billion, since the crisis began.