Summary

AP-APTN-0930: US Oil Saturday, 12 June 2010 STORY:US Oil- REPLAY New figures show leak may be twice as bad as previously thought LENGTH: 03:09 FIRST RUN: 0330 RESTRICTIONS: Pt No Access NAmerica/Internet TYPE: English/Nats SOURCE: AP TELEVISION/ABC/BP handout STORY NUMBER: 648152 DATELINE: Various, 11 June 2010 LENGTH: 03:09 ABC - NO ACCESS NORTH AMERICA/INTERNET AP TELEVISION - AP CLIENTS ONLY BP HANDOUT - AP CLIENTS ONLY SHOTLIST: ABC - NO ACCESS NORTH AMERICA/INTERNET Washington, DC 1. Wide of US Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen walking to podium 2. SOUNDBITE: (English) Admiral Thad Allen, US Coast Guard: "First of all, I think we're still dealing with the flow estimate, and we're still trying to refine those numbers. One portion of the work, as we've just indicated, came up with the higher flow rate." 3. Allen at podium 4. SOUNDBITE: (English) Admiral Thad Allen, US Coast Guard: "Between the middle of June and the first week or so of July we're going to start incrementally building out a new mooring system, and then production vessels that will be linked to shuttle tankers that can accommodate a greater flow rate, and at that point, once we know we can do that, we will probably shift from a containment cap we have right now to a more hard cap, which will help us to capture more - if not all - of the oil that's coming out of the well head." ABC - NO ACCESS NORTH AMERICA/INTERNET Fort Jackson, Louisiana 5. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal at news conference 6. SOUNDBITE: (English) Bobby Jindal, Louisiana Governor: "They should absolutely make the data, the images, available to not only the world's and the country's best scientists and engineers, but also the American people. There has been a pattern here from the very beginning: they've not made the data available, they've not made the components of the sub-sea dispersants available, they've not allowed folks to have easy access to the images of oiled wildlife or marshlands or the coastline, and the reality is, this coastline doesn't belong to BP, it doesn't belong to me; it belongs to the people of Louisiana, it belongs to the people of America - they've got a right to see what's happening out there." 7. Jindal at podium AP TELEVISION - AP CLIENTS ONLY Venice, Louisiana 8. Wide of interior of restaurant 9. SOUNDBITE: (English) Vox pop, Mike Butler, business owner: "Being in the oil industry - and my father worked for it for 40 years and I worked for it for, well, put my way through college - it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out a 21-inch (53.3-centimetre) pipe was going to put out more oil than they were saying." 10. Man sitting at counter in restaurant 11. SOUNDBITE: (English) Philippe Cousteau Junior, environmentalist: "So you're talking about a significant increase in how much oil is coming out - well over a (m) million gallons (3.78 (m) million litres) a day. That equates to about an Exxon Valdez a week. Now, Exxon Valdez, we know, was 11 (m) million gallons (41.6 (m) million litres) it was confined to the surface in Alaska, and caused considerable damage, and the Prince William Sound and the ecosystem and the animals in those regions and many of the communities and the people have not recovered 20 years later." ABC - NO ACCESS NORTH AMERICA/INTERNET Gulfport, Mississippi ++MUTE++ 12. Wide of woman cleaning turtle 13. Mid of turtle being cleaned, zoom in to close-up 14. Close-up of turtle being cleaned 15. Dead turtles on beach BP HANDOUT - AP CLIENTS ONLY Gulf of Mexico ++MUTE++ 16. Oil flowing from pipe 17. Robotic equipment close to pipe 18. Oil flowing from pipe STORYLINE: The oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico may be twice as big as previously thought, scientists said on Friday. Scientists now say the wrecked oil well could have been spewing up to two (m) million gallons (7.6 (m) million litres) a day of crude before a new cap started capturing some of the leak, meaning more than 100 (m) million gallons (380 (m) million litres) may have escaped into the sea. That is more than nine times the size of the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster, previously the worst oil spill in US history. The larger estimates, while still preliminary and considered a worst-case scenario, could contribute to huge liabilities against BP. Penalties can be levied against the company under a variety of environmental protection laws, including fines of up to 1,100 US dollars under the Clean Water Act for each barrel of oil spilled. Based on the maximum amount of oil possibly spilled to date, that would translate to a potential civil fine for simple discharge alone of 2.8 (b) billion US dollars. If BP were found to have committed gross negligence or wilful misconduct, the civil fine could be up to 4,300 dollars per barrel, or up to 11.1 (b) billion dollars. The federal government's point man for the Gulf Coast oil spill on Friday acknowledged that reliable numbers on the severity of the crisis are hard to get. "I think we're still dealing with the flow estimate. We're still trying to refine those numbers," Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen told reporters in Washington, DC. Allen said it will be at least July before BP has the tankers in place to capture the latest estimates for crude flowing from the blown well. Even if undersea efforts to direct the oil to the surface succeed, it will take weeks to get the proper equipment in place to hold it, he said. Allen sent a letter to BP's chairman, Carl-Henric Svanberg, on Thursday, summoning him and "any appropriate officials" from BP to meet with US President Barack Obama and others next Wednesday. The White House said on Friday that Svanberg would attend, and the company's CEO, Tony Hayward, is also assumed to be coming. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal blasted BP on Friday for not being more forthcoming about how much oil is really pouring into the Gulf of Mexico. At his daily news briefing, Jindal said that at the beginning BP told officials there was no oil leak at all, and after that had repeatedly given different figures for how much oil was escaping into the ocean. Jindal insisted that BP should make the real data available not only to scientists but to the American people. The new spill estimates are based on spill-cam video as well as such things as satellite, sonar and pressure readings. The lead scientist in the effort said the most credible range at the moment is between 840-thousand gallons (3,179,650 litres) and 1.68 (m) million gallons (6.4 (m) million litres) a day. Another part of the equation is how much more oil started to leak last week after the riser pipe was cut, a step that BP and government officials said could increase the flow by 20 percent. The pipe cut was necessary to install a cap over the well; the cap has captured an estimated 4 (m) million gallons (15 (m) million litres) so far. A larger spill also could lead to increased environmental hazards, with shrimp, crabs and fish such as marlin and swordfish especially hard hit. Environmentalist Philippe Cousteau Junior said the amount of oil leaking every week is roughly equivalent to the entire Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska in 1989. Much of the area affected by the Exxon Valdez spill still has not recovered, he said. At the highest estimated rate, in just over three weeks from now the spill will eclipse the worst oil spill in peacetime history, the 1979 Ixtoc disaster in Mexico, which took 10 months to belch out 140 (m) million gallons (530 (m) million litres) of oil into the Gulf. Clients are reminded: (i) to check the terms of their licence agreements for use of content outside news programming and that further advice and assistance can be obtained from the AP Archive on: Tel +44 (0) 20 7482 7482 Email: infoaparchive.com (ii) they should check with the applicable collecting society in their Territory regarding the clearance of any sound recording or performance included within the AP Television News service (iii) they have editorial responsibility for the use of all and any content included within the AP Television News service and for libel, privacy, compliance and third party rights applicable to their Territory. APTN APEX 06-12-10 0530EDT