LONDON — British oil giant BP revealed Friday that the devastating Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster has cost it eight billion dollars (6.2 billions euros) so far -- with a sharp rise in payments in the last month.

"The cost of the response to date amounts to approximately eight billion dollars, including the cost of the spill response, containment, relief well drilling, static kill and cementing, grants to the Gulf states, claims paid and federal costs," BP said in a statement on Friday.

The latest figure compared with the previous estimate of 6.1 billion dollars that was given last month.

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Even as they work together to kill the Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico, the oil giant BP and the deep-water drilling rig company Transocean are in an increasingly bitter battle over what went wrong on April 20 to trigger America's worst oil spill.

The conflict flared Thursday when Transocean fired off a scathing letter accusing BP of hoarding information and test results related to the Deepwater Horizon blowout that killed 11 people, including nine Transocean employees. Signed by Transocean's acting co-general counsel, Steven L. Roberts, the letter says that Transocean's internal investigation of what went wrong has been hampered by BP's refusal to deliver "even the most basic information" about the event.

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CHICAGO - BP's internal investigation of the Deepwater Horizon rig disaster pins some of the blame on the company for mistakes made when finishing the oil well, including misreading pressure data that indicated a blowout was imminent, according to a person familiar with the report. BP managers aboard the rig, owned by Transocean, misinterpreted a test of the well's stability in April, deciding the test confirmed the well was in good shape, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity. That interpretation of the test data cleared the way for rig workers to begin replacing drilling fluid in the well - which is heavier than oil and natural gas - with seawater. The seawater was too light to prevent natural gas, which had begun leaking into the well, from shooting up the pipe to the rig, where it exploded and killed 11 workers. The damaged well eventually spewed more than 200 million gallons of crude into the sea. "The entire industry should not be blamed for the actions of one single individual," John Hofmeister, chief executive officer of Citizens for Affordable Energy and a former Royal Dutch Shell executive, said yesterday on Bloomberg Television's Inside Track.

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"And I think the media now has to...tell the American people who’s getting money for poisoning the millions of people in the Gulf." - Hugh Kaufman, senior EPA analyst, admits millions have been poisoned in the Gulf states.

(CHICAGO) - A biochemical bomb went off in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010--as dangerous and destructive as a nuclear blast.

While an atom bomb’s destruction can be measured immediately after detonation, BP’s unintentional biochemical bomb is a slow-motion explosion that's driving a continuing disaster. Unfortunately, lingering death occurs with both types of explosions.

Millions exposed to uncontrolled hemorrhaging, lesions, cancers

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