Interactive timeline: BP oil spill disaster

The Financial Times looks back at the key events in BP’s struggle to contain the disastrous oil spill that followed the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, off the coast of Louisiana.

On August 3, BP said it had finally plugged the leaking oil well after an estimated 4.9m barrels flowed into the Gulf of Mexico. But as it announced on August 9 that the disaster had cost it $6.1bn to date the company still faced unknown financial penalties for the disaster even as it finalised a $20bn escrow fund to cover “legitimate claims” arising from the accident.

This interactive timeline charts the course of the accident, the estimates of oil leaking into the ocean, and the clean-up costs for the worst environmental disaster ever to hit the US.