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Deep Water Horizon
sinks to the bottom after burning 36 hrs & raising concerns of a catastrophic oil spill, the Macondo could be releasing up to 8,000 gallons of oil a day. -
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Obama's sombre oil leak prognosis
President Obama makes his first trip to the Gulf Coast and says BP is responsible for the leak and paying for its clean-up. -
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BP's Great Announcement
Announces it will place $20bn in a fund to compensate victims of the oil spill and says it will not pay a shareholder dividend this year. -
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gulf oil tar balls hit Texas
Oil from the spill reaches Texas, meaning it has affected all 5 U.S. gulf states. -
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Storm forces ships off spill site
Dozens of vessels, including the rig drilling a relief well to permanently block the damaged well, are ordered to leave the site as Tropical Storm Bonnie approaches. BP warns that the final operation to plug the well could be delayed by up to two weeks by the storm. -
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Oil desperate 'not more toxic'
The US Environmental Protection Agency says in a study the dispersant used after the spill is no more toxic than oil alone. There had been concerns raised by congressional investigators that dispersant may have been more widely used than the government ordered. -
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BP gears up to halt 'worst spill'
The US government says the oil spill is officially the biggest leak ever, with 4.9 million barrels of oil leaked before the well was capped last month. Scientists said only a fifth of the leaking oil - around 800,000 barrels - was captured during the clean-up operation. -
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Oil leaks leaves undersea residue
A study published in a leading scientific journal confirms the presence of a toxic chemical residue one kilometre below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, but says it amounts to just 0.1% of the total amount spilled. -
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Growing concerns over US oil leak
Declared the worst oil spill in history. -
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No further risk
Thad Allen, the US coastguard official overseeing the clean-up operation, says the BP oil well at the centre of the leak poses "no further risk" to the environment, despite the final stages of an operation to pump concrete into a relief well remaining unfinished.