BP will be able to handle the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the company’s chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg said.

• Svanberg: Working for BP no 'smooth ride'
• BP: oil spill disaster not our fault

Swedish businessman Carl-Henric Svanberg, who was appointed as the BP group's new chairman from 2010, has just retuned back from the United States. Despite being criticized for his low profile and “radio silence” he says that he’s very involved in the efforts to address the emerging crisis after the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig last month that is wreaking havoc on the environment.

“It's a tragic accident. There are eleven people who have lost their lives”, he told business website e24.se in an exclusive first interview after the incident.

"It is our subcontractor's drilling equipment that has failed, but it is our responsibility. We will do everything humanly possible to plug the leak, clean up after ourselves and meet all necessary requirements".

Svanberg underlines that it's important that BP's chief executive officer Tony Hayward gets full mandate to run the operations and speaks for the company; that's why he's been silent.

“There’s a clear separation of responsibilities. CEO Tony Hayward and his team are responsible for the company’s operations and they are doing excellent work to try to cope with this difficult situation", said Carl-Henric Svanberg, adding that he and the rest of the board are there to back up Tony Hayward and make sure “everything is handled properly”.

“But if we are to avoid misunderstanding, we must speak with one clear voice”.

In a panel discussion at Zeitgeist Europe 2010 Svanberg said that the oil spill catastrophe will change the oil industry in the same way that Three Mile Island – the site of the worst civilian nuclear accident in United States history in 1979 – changed the rules for the entire nuclear industry.

“It is obviously a big disaster that we are witnessing. We will learn a lot from this and learn to do things differently", he said.