June 18 (Reuters) - Here are developments in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the largest in U.S. history:
TOP DEVELOPMENTS
* A $20 billion fund set up by energy giant BP Plc to compensate financial losses due to the spill will pay legitimate claims fast, the fund’s independent administrator said on Friday.
* BP is seeking $1 billion in loans from seven banks for up to $7 billion, a senior London-based loan banker told Thomson Reuters LPC, as the company raises funds while battling to plug its gushing well.
* BP remains in a strong financial position despite the market uncertainty that has followed the spill, Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg said on Friday.
* Svanberg, in an interview with Sky News television, also confirmed that BP chief executive Tony Hayward would hand over the day-to-day handling of the spill to managing director Bob Dudley once the leak has been capped.
POLITICS / POLICY
* Angry U.S. lawmakers hammered BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward at a congressional hearing on Thursday, accusing him of evasion and ducking responsibility and his company of taking "extreme risks" that triggered the disaster.
* Republican Representative Joe Barton of Texas apologized to Hayward at the hearing for the White House "shakedown" creating a $20 billion "slush fund." He retracted his apology after it provoked denunciations from his own party.
COMPANY / MARKETS NEWS
* BP shares end down slightly in London on Friday, flat in New York trade.
* Moody’s cut BP’s credit rating by three notches on Friday, the oil major’s third downgrade in a week, and said the company’s $20 billion spill fund would not cap liabilities for the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster.
* Russia’s LUKOIL said it had not yet decided whether to buy back its stake from Conoco and was not interested in snapping up anything from BP’s $10 billion asset sale.
* BP has not sold its stake in Russia’s biggest oil firm, Rosneft, and has no plans to sell it as part of its $10 billion asset sale plan, the head of BP’s Russian operations said.
* Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told the Wall Street Journal the spill could lead to the breakup of BP but stopped short of saying Russia would re-evaluate BP’s lucrative Russian partnership.
SPILL CONTAINMENT EFFORTS
* The first of two relief wells being drilled to plug the massive Gulf of Mexico leak is within 200 feet (60 metres) of the blown-out well.
* BP collected 25,000 barrels of oil from its blown-out Macondo well on Thursday, Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen said.
OIL SLICK THREAT
* The spill has imperiled multibillion-dollar fishing and tourism industries and killed or threatens birds, sea turtles, dolphins and other marine wildlife.
* Fear that oil from the spill will damage Mississippi’s coast is hurting the state’s economy more than oil damage itself, according to a report.
GLOBAL REACTION
* Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said the Gulf spill should lead to a review of global energy industry co-operation.
* Offshore drilling continues around the world as BP’s spill gushes.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
* "It’s time for heads to roll at BP," Florida Democratic Representative Kathy Castor on Reuters Insider.
