Oil spill latest: The cost of clumsiness

BP originally estimated that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill would becontained with robotic submarines, however early attempts to contain the oil spill failed. Now BP and the Obama administration are left with an ever-worsening environmental catastrophe and a spiralling clean-up bill that runs into billions of dollars.

As of Thursday, over 70 lawsuits have been filed against BP and Transocean, with the potential for thousands of claims. The new estimate for the clean-up operation is a whopping $23 billion, however it appears an acoustic trigger that doesn’t fall under mandatory government legislation could have prevented the oil slick.