LONDON (MarketWatch) – The U.S. Government is likely to bow to pressure from BP PLC and cut its estimate of the size of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last summer, U.K. newspaper The Observer reports Sunday.
The official U.S. Government estimate says currently that 4.9 million barrels of oil leaked from the Macondo well, 800,000 barrels of which was captured from the well head. BP has been arguing behind the scenes that this figure is too high and a source at the Environmental Protection Agency told the Observer the government has agreed to reduce the estimate.