Tony Hayward the outgoing chief executive of BP declared that the Gulf of Mexico oil well disaster represents a failure for the entire deepwater oil and gas drilling industry.

“The industry needs to re-evaluated safety” Hayward told in investment professionals in a webcast. Everyone will need to re-evaluate the business model to reduce risk associated with deepwater drilling” Hayward added.

BP has always maintained that it does not deserve all the blame for the April accident and its subsequent pollution and intends to pursue legal action against its trading partners for a sharer of the cleanup and containment costs. Those partners include rig operator Transocean, the blowout preventer builder Cameron and Halliburton.

“It is clear the accident was the result of multiple equipment errors and human error involving many companies,” Hayward said in the webcast.

“From the beginning of the crisis, I’ve sought to do the right thing, do it the right way and communicate openly,” said Hayward.

Eleven workers died when the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and sank in the Gulf of Mexico on 20 April. From that day until July 15 when a cap was sealed over the wellhead oil flowed into the Gulf at the rate of tens of thousands of barrels a day.