BP Yet to Update Gulf Emergency Plan

BP's risk managers hesitated to set a new standard for oil spill response, despite regulations that require an updated emergency plan.

A BP spokesman denied the company needed to file a revised plan, saying: "An incident does not trigger automatic re-submittal of an oil spill response plan… Once we have gathered the learnings from the Deepwater Horizon incident, we will update our plan and submit it."

The government is still reviewing BP's original response plan. Note: Over a three month period BP's skimming failed miserably relative to plan.

Before the well blew out, BP reported its skimming capacity as 491,721 barrels of oil each day in the event of a major spill. That dropped to 171,000 bpd when the burning rig sank. BP didn't skim one day's worth of its promised capacity.

It turns out thousands of Vessels of Opportunity were mostly for show. Risk clearly remains.