London: BP PLC chief executive Tony Hayward said on Monday he won't step down over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, and predicted his company will recover from the disaster.
Hayward told BBC television's "Andrew Marr Show" that he would not quit, and he had the "absolute intention of seeing this through to the end".
"We are going to stop the leak. We're going to clean up the oil, we're going to remediate any environmental damage and we are going to return the Gulf coast to the position it was in prior to this event," Hayward said.
"That's an absolute commitment, we will be there long after the media has gone, making good on our promises".
The executive said a containment cap placed on the blown-out well in the Gulf had collected about 10,000 barrels of oil over the last 24 hours, and that BP hope a second containment system will be in place by next weekend.
"When those two are in place, we would very much hope to be containing the vast majority of the oil," Hayward said.
He said his company had been left devastated by the disaster, and conceded that safety standards across the oil industry must dramatically improve in response.
But he said BP would survive, and has the "wherewithal to weather this storm and come back strongly."
"BP is a very strong company, it's operations today are running extremely well. It's generating a lot of cash flow, it has a very strong balance sheet. Our reputation has been based on thousands of people, over a long period of time, in BP doing the right thing, and were are doing everything we can to do the right thing," he said.
Hayward declined to say whether it would pay a dividend to shareholders scheduled to be paid at the end of July. He said the decision would be taken by BP's board at the end of next month, and promised the company would "take care of all of our stakeholders."