BP board to consider dividend delay calls

The meeting in London comes as US President Barack Obama begins a two-day visit to the Gulf Coast to view the damage from the massive slick and talk to affected residents.

The White House and senior officials in Louisiana and Florida have demanded that BP set up an "escrow account" to set aside billions of dollars to pay future compensation claims.

Mr Obama wants an independent third party to administer the account and compensate those with "legitimate" claims.

He has summoned BP's Swedish chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg to the White House on Wednesday to explain what the company is doing to stop the flow of tens of thousands of barrels of oil into the waters of the Gulf and how it will compensate the thousands of residents, fishermen and oil workers who have lost out as a result.

The President last week said that that BP must not "nickel and dime" Gulf residents while handing out massive sums of money to investors.

The latest tranche of dividend due in July is expected to be worth around 1.7 billion, and BP has confirmed its directors will today consider various options, including suspension.

However a spokesman cautioned that no decision was likely to be announced today.

British pension funds, including the four main public sector schemes in Yorkshire, collectively have hundreds of millions of pounds invested in BP shares.

BP has been given until today to provide the US Coast Guard with an improved plan to plug the leak caused by a disastrous blowout at its Deepwater Horizon rig on April 20.

In a letter made public on Saturday, Coast Guard Rear Admiral James Watson said: "BP must identify in the next 48 hours additional leak containment capacity that could be operationalised and expedited."

Admiral Watson did not specify what sanctions might be triggered if BP fails to meet his demand.

Mr Obama sought to calm trans-Atlantic tensions over BP in a phone call with Prime Minister David Cameron on Saturday, in which he stressed that his criticisms of the company were "nothing to do with national identity". US Ambassador Louis Suzman yesterday affirmed that the President's tough stance was "nothing to do with anti-Britishness".

The President assured Mr Cameron that he had "no interest in undermining BP's value".

And the two leaders agreed that BP should continue to work intensively to ensure that "all sensible and reasonable steps are taken as rapidly as practicable to deal with the consequences of this catastrophe".