Embattled BP boss Tony Hayward has defended the firm's safety record in the North Sea, insisting recent criticisms had not exposed "any fundamental weakness".
Mr Hayward spoke out as he was grilled by a committee of MPs investigating the implications of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill for offshore drilling in the UK.
In his first UK appearance since the Deepwater Horizon explosion, he said the disaster had been personally "devastating" because he had made safety the firm's top priority.
But he was forced to explain why inspections on BP's North Sea installations found some did not comply with guidelines over regular training for operators on how to respond to an incident.
Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) inspectors also found the firm had not conducted oil spill exercises properly at some of its offshore sites. The Committee is looking at whether the UK regime is fit for purpose and the risks of drilling off the coast of Scotland, amid fears a spill could occur in UK waters.
Mr Hayward told the MPs: "We have a very strong track record in the North Sea. BP spills, which are a good indicator of safety performance in terms of integrity of plant, have fallen by 20 per cent over the last two years and we now lead the industry in terms of that particular metric in the North Sea."
DECC had publicly said that "nothing that they identified compromised the overall integrity of the installation or its pollution response provision," he said.
