A black hole

It also raises ethical questions about deep-sea oil drilling following various failed attempts over the weekend to plug a leak,which has seen up to 40 million tons of oil pumped into the Gulf of Mexico since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank on April 20, killing 11 workers.

What will surprise thousands of public sector workers, however, is how their pension funds are now allied to BP's salvage attempts following the worst oil spill in US history, and how the sharp fall in the firm's share value – which shows few signs, like the leak, of abating – is wiping millions of pounds off their collective investments.

Of course, Yorkshire's local government pension fund managers could not have foreseen this crisis and there is a prospect that BP's share price will rise once this leak has been effectively capped. That is assuming, however, that another crisis does not afflict the oil giant – a conglomerate whose global interests have been responsible for three major disasters in five years.

However, it is another warning to pension funds that they should not invest too much money in one place – members of the South Yorkshire Pensions Authority are still a paying a heavy price after its so-called experts ignored official warnings and placed their financial faith in the troubled Icelandic banking sector shortly before its implosion in autumn 2008.

It is why so much, from Yorkshire's perspective, rests on the outcome of a deep-sea salvage mission to stem the oil leak which has left pension funds, as well as BP, in troubled waters.