Obama goes on the offensive

Washington -The White House said Sunday that US President Barack Obama will address the nation on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill on his return from a two-day visit to the stricken region.

The Obama administration also stepped up the pressure on BP, demanding it set up an escrow account to pay individuals and businesses hit by the disaster and calling for an independent panel to oversee the claims process.

Obama's televised address at 20:00 on Tuesday (00:00 GMT Wednesday) marks a significant elevation of his strategy on the oil crisis and a sign of the gravity of the situation as the US faces its worst ever environmental disaster.

"The president is going down to the Gulf on Monday and Tuesday to the states he hasn't visited - Alabama, Mississippi and Florida. When he returns he will address the nation from the White House," top aide David Axelrod said.

"We're at a kind of inflection point in this saga. He wants to lay out the steps we'll take from here to get through this crisis," Axelrod, Obama's senior adviser, told NBC television's "Meet The Press" program.

Obama's address and the more stringent demands of BP suggest a concerted effort to be more aggressive on the disaster as angry Americans are confronted by disturbing images of oiled birds and toxic crude spoiling fragile wetlands.

BP has failed several times to seal the flow and the first relief well that could provide a permanent solution is not predicted to be ready until the second week of August at the earliest.

A containment system is siphoning up some 15 000 barrels of oil a day to the surface via a mile-long pipe but flow estimates indicate the same amount of crude could still being leaking into the Gulf and feeding the giant spill.

The US Coast Guard has given BP until Sunday to fine-tune plans to increase the capacity of its "top hat" oil capture system amid fears of a time lapse while oil processing vessels are rotated.

Businesses in the Gulf region, ranging from fishing to tourism, are suffering. Some workers are finding temporary employment with BP to help in the clean-up effort, but longer-term prospects are bleak.

Axelrod said Obama will insist in a high-stakes White House meeting Wednesday with BP bosses that the firm establish an independently administered escrow fund to pay out claims.

"We want to make sure that money is escrowed for the legitimate claims that are going to be made and are being made by businesses down in the Gulf, people who have been damaged by this.

"And we want to make sure that money is independently managed so that they won't be slow-walked on these claims."

Thad Allen, the former coast guard chief leading the US response to the crisis, said he expected under fire BP CEO Tony Hayward to join chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg at the meeting with Obama and administration officials.

The meeting follows Obama's fourth and longest visit to the region since the disaster and his returning address to an American nation that will vote in vital mid-term elections in just five months time.

It is comparatively rare for presidents to use the formal setting of a prime-time televised address from the White House. Such addresses are often reserved for moments of national crises, including wars and disasters.

Obama has yet to give an Oval Office address to the American people, though it has not been decided yet whether he will appear at the presidential desk flanked by US flags in that setting on Tuesday evening.

In a 30-minute phone call Saturday, Obama reassured British Prime Minister David Cameron amid fears in London that political pressure in Washington could force BP into bankruptcy or make it the target of a takeover.

The company is expected to announce that it will suspend its next dividend payment to shareholders, due on July 27, in a bid to quell some of the growing anger at the energy giant in the US.

Earlier this week, US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said the company's liability should include reimbursing all companies hit by a six-month moratorium on deep sea drilling.

Analysts estimate that BP's total liability for the environmental catastrophe, including the cleanup, compensation claims, government penalties, and a host of civil lawsuits, could reach $30 to $100bn

The firm's share price has fallen more than 40% since the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20, killing 11 workers.

The rig sank two days later, fracturing the pipe that is now spewing the oil.

 - AFP