BP shares containment system for gulf

HOUSTON, Sept. 21 (UPI) -- The experience gained from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill response is available for the rest of the industry to help thwart future accident, BP announced.

British energy company BP said it would join the proposed Marine Well Containment Co. to make the underwater equipment used in the oil spill response available to all of the energy companies working in the gulf.

"We believe the addition of our recently gained deep-water intervention experience and specialized equipment will be important to the marine well containment system," said Richard Morrison, BP vice president for Gulf of Mexico operations, in a statement.

Supermajors Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil and Shell will work on constructing a system that goes beyond existing response capabilities while current equipment will help preserve the energy industry in the gulf, the energy company said.

The four supermajors announced plans in July to build a new spill response system that would help prevent an accident like the one that caused the Macondo well on the bottom of the gulf to fail and dump massive of amounts of oil into regional waters.

"We are working quickly and effectively in an unprecedented effort to improve incident preparedness," said Exxon Mobil's Lloyd Guillory, the top executive in charge of the marine well containment system project.

BP used a subsea containment system to cap the leaking Macondo well in July. The company managed to seal the well for good during the weekend.