Now the disaster-struck company has pinned its hopes on Irish engineers.
Three massive valves, weighing a tonne each, were urgently air-freighted to the disaster zone last week in a desperate effort by BP to stem the oil gushing from the sea floor.
The one-tonne "choke" valves, worth €100,000 each, were designed and produced by Irish workers at a company based in Longford.
BP bosses sent an urgent message for help in finding a specialist valve it needed for its latest plan to plug the oil spill -- and Longford's Cameron International answered the call.
Cameron International's Bob Walker, MD of the Longford plant that employs 240 people, said: "We got a call from our Houston head office to supply something we produce here. We were asked for part number. . . .' Do you have such a thing?'
"We searched our inventory and found what was the best match for the product we were asked to supply.
"But we had just supplied them to a third party in Norway. We contacted the company in Norway and they also work with BP, so they agreed we could buy them back. They were air-freighted direct from Norway to America.
"If they had not been able to sell them back to us, if they had already been in use, then it would have taken between 14 and 16 weeks for us to make and deliver new ones."
The "subsea choke" valves are inserted into a gas or oil line to hold back the pressure from a well.
The 100 per cent Irish-made valves could be used in one of "three or four" different options BP's engineers are currently considering at the moment to plug the Deepwater Horizon well, according to Mr Walker.
An estimated 35,000 to 60,000 barrels of crude a day have been spewing out of the gusher on the seabed since disaster struck on April 20. A cap was put on the well at the beginning of June, which the US government estimated helped capture half of the oil spewing from the gusher.
The spill covers an area of 2,500 square miles.
- Christian McCashin
Sunday Independent