Which is why BP needs actions, not words. While it cannot – yet – stop the leak, it can get on the front foot financially and try to raise some cash, either through a rights or bond issue. That would keep predators, such as America's Exxon, at bay – and would at least allow BP to assess, from a position of relative strength, the strategic pitfalls of being forced to put its tarnished US business into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.