The company pledged to set aside $20 billion to help spill victims, and the containment system at the site of the crippled well was capturing or burning increasing amounts of oil. Instead, the company faced renewed anger Saturday after reports that chief executive Tony Hayward had jetted back to England to attend an exclusive yachting competition.
Hayward took Saturday off to see his 52-foot yacht “Bob” compete in a race around the Isle of Wight off southern England. It was a good day for sailing — breezy and about 68 degrees — but anger simmered on the steamy Gulf Coast, where crude oil is still gushing from a blown-out well.
“Man, that ain’t right. None of us can even go out fishing, and he’s at the yacht races,” said Bobby Pitre, 33, who runs a tattoo shop in Larose, La. “I wish we could get a day off from the oil, too.” BP spokespeople rushed to defend Hayward, who has drawn biting criticism as the public face of BP PLC’s halting efforts to stop the spill.
Company spokesman Robert Wine said the break is the first for Hayward since the Deepwater Horizon rig that BP was leasing exploded April 20, killing 11 workers and setting off the undersea gusher. “He’s spending a few hours with his family at a weekend. I’m sure that everyone would understand that,” Wine said.
He noted Hayward is a well known as a fan of the J.P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race, one of the world’s largest, which attracts more than 1,700 boats and 16,000 sailors as famous yachtsmen compete with wealthy amateurs in a 50-nautical mile course.
“Bob” finished fourth in its group. It was not clear whether Hayward took part in the race or attended as a spectator. The boat, made 10 years ago by the Annapolis, Md.-based boat builder Farr Yacht Design, lists for nearly $700,000. Hayward had already angered many in the US when he was quoted in the Times of London as suggesting that Americans were particularly likely to file bogus claims for compensation from the spill. He later shocked Louisiana residents by telling them that no one wanted to resolve the crisis as badly as he did because “I’d like my life back.” Ronnie Kennier, a 49-year-old oysterman from Empire, La., said Hayward’s day among the sailboats showed once again just how out of touch BP executives are with the suffering along the Gulf.
“He wanted to get his life back,” Kennier said. “I guess he got it.”
Meanwhile, President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden enjoyed a round of golf Saturday near Washington, something they’ve done on other weekends since the spill and a fact not lost on users of social networking sites.
Twitter feeds compared Obama and Biden’s golfing to Hayward’s yachting, lumping them together as diversions of privileged people who should be paying more attention to the spill.
Meanwhile, an internal BP Plc document released on Sunday by a senior US congressional Democrat shows that the company estimates that a worst-case scenario rate for the oil spill could be about 100,000 barrels of oil per day.
The estimate of 100,000 barrels (4.2 million gallons/15.9 million liters) of oil per day is far higher than the current US government estimate of up to 60,000 barrels (2.5 million gallons/9.5 million liters) per day gushing from the ruptured offshore well into the sea.
The document, which is undated, was released by US Representative Ed Markey, chairman of the energy and environment subcommittee of the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee.
The amount of oil actually gushing from the well has been a matter of considerable controversy since the spill began on April 20, with critics saying BP has deliberately understated the flow rate.
“This document raises very troubling questions about what BP knew and when they knew it,” Markey said in a statement.
