Britain still putting trust in BP after spill

A poll commissioned for the Financial Times showed only 33 per cent of Britons thought any less of the firm following the catastrophe, which is now the world's worst oil spill.

More than one in five UK respondents added that their attitude remained positive or had actually improved – in contrast with the US, where nearly two thirds now think less of BP.

Nearly five million barrels of oil have flooded into the Gulf since the Deepwater Horizon explosion on April 20, which killed 11 workers.

The Harris online poll surveyed more than 6,000 adults in the UK, US, France, Germany, Spain and Italy at the end of July.

BP will hope that the appointment of its new chief executive, US citizen Bob Dudley, will ease the pressure on the firm across the Atlantic, where it makes around a third of its profits.

Former boss Tony Hayward, who resigned at the end of July, became a hate figure for many Americans after a series of public relations blunders – including telling a reporter that "he wanted his life back".

White House officials and President Obama himself also stoked anti-British sentiment by constantly referring to BP by its old name of British Petroleum during the early stages of the crisis.

But the political strain on BP has eased since the group agreed a 20 billion dollar (12.5bn) compensation fund in June for those businesses hit by the spill.

The firm shut off the leak on July 15 and successfully completed a "static kill" operation over the weekend with the cementing of the well.

The cost of tackling the spill and the clean-up has risen to 6.1 billion dollars so far – with 826,000 barrels of oil skimmed from the surface – although far less oil is getting to the surface since the well was capped.

A relief well being drilled beneath the seabed is likely to intercept the well next week, although a second relief well has been suspended to prevent interference with the first.

The group revealed a 32.2 billion US dollar (20.8bn) blow from the spill in second-quarter figures at the end of July although the oil giant is also likely to be hit with fines and penalties running into billions of dollars.