After getting a verbal boot in the butt from the U.S. Coast Guard about their lackadaisical attitude toward cleaning up their mess in the Gulf of Mexico, British Petroleum has come back with a slightly more aggressive schedule for mopping up the disaster.

BP is currently scavenging around 15,000 barrels of crude from the Gulf each day. They had previously said they hoped to be up to 40-50K barrels/day by mid-July. But with the new schedule given in response to the Coast Guard’s hurry-up demands, BP says it will be at that collection level by the end of June.

Consequently, BP says the mid-July number has been bumped up to around 80,000 barrels/day.

In order to step up their efforts, BP it is bringing up one additional ship from South America and two more from Europe.

Even so, BP is not exactly pleased with these emergency moves. Says some really rich guy from the oil company:

The risks of operating multiple facilities in close proximity must be carefully managed… Several hundred people are working in a confined space with live hydrocarbons on up to 4 vessels. This is significantly beyond both BP and industry practice.

We will continue to aggressively drive schedule to minimize pollution, but we must not allow this drive to compromise our number one priority, that being the health and safety of our people.

BP Outlines Plan to Speed Up Oil Containment [Fox News]

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