"Oil Companies Plan Rapid Response System to Gulf Spills"

"Four large oil  companies are committing $1 billion to set up a rapid response system to deal with oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico’s deep waters. The effort is aimed partly at deflecting efforts by some state and federal officials to stop or severely restrict drilling in the gulf in the wake of the BP spill.

The plan is expected to be announced on Thursday and involves Exxon Mobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips  and Royal Dutch Shell. But it will be open to any company with offshore drilling and production in the gulf — including BP, whose runaway Macondo well has shown how unprepared the industry was for a major drilling accident."

Jad Mouawad reports for the New York Times July 21, 2010.