Clarification: Comments from BP's Doug Suttles on the future Of MC252 reservoir

Release date:

6 August 2010

At a press conference in New Orleans this morning, Doug Suttles, BP's chief operating officer for Exploration & Production, responded to two questions about possible future development opportunities within the MC252 reservoir, saying:

“And you can imagine what we've been focused on is the response right now. So we haven't even thought about what we're going to do with this reservoir and this field some day."

Later he acknowledged that there are substantial oil and gas reserves in the reservoir, adding that BP would have to “think about what to do with that at some point.”

As Mr. Suttles made clear this morning, BP's present focus is entirely on the response effort in the Gulf of Mexico and the future use of the reservoir is not currently under consideration.

Mr. Suttles also emphasized that neither the original wellbore, which was successfully cemented, nor either of the two relief wells would be used as part of any future development.