Spotlight on BP shares after Congress grilling

Despite negative headlines after the grilling of the BP chief by US lawmakers, shares in the company have climbed slightly in London trading.

However, shares are still 40 percent below the value they had 60 days, when the BP oil leak began in the Gulf of Mexico.

Also today, Moody’s cut BP’s credit rating by three notches on Friday, the oil major’s third downgrade in a week. The encounter the company’s chief executive had in Congress was bruising.

Democrat Congressman Eliot Engel said: “Mr. Hayward, perhaps your lawyers have told you to be very cautious but it’s really an insult for you to come to this committee and keep repeating the same thing, evade questions, evade answers and just repeat again and again that you were not responsible and that we have to wait for an investigation.

The owner of a Louisiana marina, Dodie Vegas, was one of those who watched the questioning.

“He’s not answering nobody’s question,” she said. “He’s just going around and around with every question that he can. And I don’t think anyone’s got a straight answer yet.”

Observers say the likely cost of the cleanup, compensation and fines has almost halved the value of BP.

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