Morning Business News, Friday 3rd September: BP Plc, another oil rig burns,  HSBC Holdings threatens to quit UK.

BP Plc (LON:BP) has revealed that the cost of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill shot up by more than $2bn in August.

Another oil rig burns

Another oil rig has exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, reportedly causing a mile-long slick – just over four months since BP’s Deepwater Horizon catastrophe triggered the worst offshore spill in history.

All 13 men working on the site, owned by US company Mariner Energy, have been rescued, after a helicopter spotted a blazing structure 100 miles from the Louisiana coastline.

“Thirteen people were seen huddled together in the water wearing gumby suits or immersion suits, water protection suits, so we were able to confirm that all people were accounted for,” said John Edwards, a Coast Guard spokesman, the Telegraph reports.

HSBC Holdings threatens relocation

HSBC Holdings (LON:HSBA) may move its headquarters from Britain if the Government’s new Banking Commission calls for a break-up of lenders.

Stuart Gulliver, who runs HSBC’s global banking business, warned that the bank could leave London if it is ordered to split its investment bank from its retail lending operations. Should the commission recommend a split, “we would have to see how we responded.

There could be significant implications for where we may choose to headquarter our institution,” Mr Gulliver told a banking conference in London, the Times reports.

US financial regulation

America's wave of new financial regulation is likely to prompt the country's biggest financial institutions to break themselves up, according to the chairman of the Federal Reserve.

“My belief is that a combination of tougher oversight and tighter capital requirements will take away the attractiveness [of being big],” Ben Bernanke told the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) in Washington DC yesterday, the Telegraph reports.