There has been speculation that the platform was damaged by the hurricanes. Lord Browne - BP's chief executive - said a shutdown of Thunder Horse during the storms meant the fault could be detected. The oil giant said profits would have been higher had it not been for the hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, which wiped $700m off its earnings. However, the company's promptness in going to the authorities as soon as the scale of the problem became clear may act in its favour. "At this stage it looks more like rank inefficiency than rank dishonesty," one source close to the investigation said.
"Nevertheless, we will lift all the lids and look down all the drains."Ofwat said: "Southern Water has given us an assurance that customers who have been disadvantaged will be reimbursed.". BP admitted yesterday it would have to spend $250m (£140m) to correct a design fault on its Thunder Horse production platform, as it announced bumper third-quarter profits of $4.4bn. Mr Dawson said Southern had notified Ofwat that it had received 2,444 written complaints in the past year, but it has emerged that the true figure was about 8,500.The failure to provide the regulator with accurate figures could open up Southern to fines, in addition to the compensation bill it faces and whatever action the SFO may decide to take. Southern, which supplies 2.3 million homes across Kent, Sussex, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, said approximately 100,000 customers had failed to receive a £25 rebate to which they were entitled because the company failed to respond to written billing queries within 10 days, as required under Ofwat regulations.A further 6,000 customers are also due the £25 refund because Southern failed to respond to complaints within 10 days. Following Forsyth's anger at Kumi Naidoo's assessment of the G8, the pair had to be kept separate backstage.The debate is most intense over the organisation of Live8, which to many has come to symbolise the damaging behaviour of Geldof, Bono and Comic Relief's Richard Curtis.
The company, which is 80 per cent-owned by Royal Bank of Scotland, said yesterday it had uncovered the "inconsistencies" only a fortnight ago in the course of installing a new customer billing system. The industry regulator Ofwat has also been notified and Southern has called in the law firm Linklaters and a specialist team of forensic accountants from KPMG to conduct an investigation, expected to last six to eight weeks.It is not clear whether fraud has been perpetrated by any members of staff and no employee has been suspended. Les Dawson, who took over as Southern's chief executive last Friday and who took the decision to go public with the customer complaint problems, said: "A serious sum of money is involved and we will take the appropriate action where necessary depending on what the investigation uncovers, but at this moment there is no reason to believe that individual fraud has taken place."He said the SFO had been alerted as a precaution because of the amount of money involved and the number of customers affected. Wal-Mart will spend $500m a year to develop techniques to cut greenhouse emissions and conserve energy.. Southern Water has contacted the Serious Fraud Office after discovering that it may owe customers up to £2.5m because of irregularities in the way it records and handles complaints and billing enquiries.
