Dudley: Oil won’t reach Florida beaches

>> the world. plus, james baker .

>>> for a month now, oil has been pouring into the gulf. still, no one can tell us how bad this disaster really is. bob dudley is bp's managing director overseeing the response efforts. thanks so much for coming back today. let's talk about where we stand, how much oil is leaking out, what is the total, what is the daily flow as of this hour.

>> well, good afternoon, andrea. we've been flowing oil to the ships right now at a rate that actually bounces around between 2500 and now as high as 4,000 barrels a day with a great deal of gas. a mixture of gas and oil at high rates. there is still some plume. this process over the next 12 hours will allow us to better estimate the flow. hopefully, we'll get most of that flow tot surface. the various agent sis are take thag data and combining it with satellite data and hopefully we can become more precise.

>> the epa announced today they are ordering you to find a less toxic form of dispersant. can you tell us if you can, within the time frame , meet the mandate?

>> from the beginning, we've been using the approved substance. we've been testing four others with the epa. we're in the process of locating them now. if it's available and with their approval, we'll make those modifications.

>> and make them in time? can that be done as rapidly as the eps a demanding?

>> i think they're part of the process , they're well aware of the operational constraints, if we have to stop injecting dispersant to make sure we're using what they would like, we will certainly do that.

>> now, there have been of course, a great deal of heart ache in the area. governor jindal is going to be speaking within the hour, but this is his previous briefing and his concern about exactly what they did not want to see, which is the heavy oil . the heavy crude already being seen in the wetlands.

>> the cost, the difference between keeping this oil out and having it in the wetlands, it could be life or death for more of these species.

>> they're talking about the critical marsh lands. you know better than i probably, these grasses, once they are mowed down by the oil, they can't come back.

>> those sites we saw are devastating. they're devastating for the people working in the marsh lands. the crews have cleaned up the beaches. the marsh land is more sensitive, so we're not going to go in with machinery and equipment. we're going to go in with absorbent materials and try to flush it out. there's about an acre that has been affected by this oil. it looks like an e muls has broken down. it's the hope of everybody to not have any more of that.

>> some of the scientific estimates have been vastly hire. the purdue scientist said that as much as 100,000 barrels a day, 4.2 million gallons of oil were leaking a day. could it be that bad?

>> it's not anything like that and i find those statements alarming. i think they're alarming to the people op on the gulf coast . i think it damages the gulf coast . people are saying, i don't want to go near florida , alabama or mississippi. those beaches are clean. the fishing is good. i think it's actually hurting the local economy with those statements. no. i think it's highly unlikely that oil will reach the beaches of florida , alabama and mississippi.

>> the oil is already in the loop current . is it your understanding that it will disperse by the time it gets to florida ? you do not see the danger of it getting to florida ?

>> what's in the loop current today, it's a small tail. what they describe as a light sheen of oil or an eddie that forms counterclock wise rotation. by the time, if it remains the sheen, by the time that moves down slowly through the loop current which heads to the west of key west and then to cuba and then east, i don't think we'll see traces of that. the main thing is to keep the main body of the oil out of the loop current .

>> now, top kill, which is the next measure that you're trying to use, what is your estimate as to whether, first of all, if it does work, does this control the problem or long-term, do you still have to rely on the drilling that well to finally shut this off? is there a possibility and how unlikely is it that top kill will work?

>> the top kill is one of a series of activities that we can do on that well and the top kill is just the first option, which we will try first. that will pump in heavy fluids into the well. try to overcome the flow, push it back down into the reservoir. if that does not work, we will immediately be ready with another containment dome over the top of that, which will move from the site of the current leak. in all cases, even if the top kill works, we will still drill the relief well to permanently ensure that the well is killed.

>> i mean, you can understand people's -- people being not only suspicious, but deeply skeptical since you have tried all of these things. one after another. nothing has worked to take to finally stop the leak. so people are asking, understandab understandably, why were you permitted to get these permits. why are other companies permitted to get permits without having an effective method of shutting it down if there is a worst case disaster, which this clearly is.

>> this is a worst case . there's really two parts to this disaster. one, we've had an industrial accident at the surface with a well and a rig, but because of the potential for a very low probability of that happening, there is this block preventer, a series of fail safe devices used on all our wells designed through multiple levels to slam shut and that device failed and that's what we all want to know why. that's the reason we have the oil spill today. and i think this is going to change the drilling industry forever. now, we're going to have to think about different kinds of failures we have. the spill response has been excellent within hours. the agencies have been out on the spill response, but it shouldn't have happened. it's very tragic that we've had this industrial accident and that, we need to understand as well. but the second piece is something very unusual.

>> characterizing it as an industrial accident doesn't clean up what the real is. we're talking about fishing in a 45,000 square mile area that has been shut down. we had congressman kyl saying that some of the fishermen are suicidal. they've lost their livelihoods. you can try to, say it kindly, put the best face on this, but 45,000 square miles of a no-fishing zone already and still no real solution, is more than just an industrial accident .

>> what i so -- an industrial accident was the problem with the rig. the problem with the blowout pr venter has created a massive disaster. the fishermen should be called our hot line . we're funding them all across the gulf and i just urge them to contact bp on these hot lines because we are taking responsibility for the disruption in their businesses.

>> and beyond the $75 million cap, mr. dudley?

>> we've said from the beginning, we're not going to hide from behind the cap. we've spent more than half a billion dollars on this spill response and the claims processes. we are not going to ask the american taxpayers for reimbursement under the legislation.

>> thanks for joining us. joining