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 US President Barack Obama used his first Oval Office address to the nation on Tuesday to say that 90 percent of the oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico will be captured within weeks, and will call for a new clean energy policy to end U.S. dependence on fossil fuels.

The 18-minute speech, televised nationally, described what happened in the April 20 explosion and fire on a Gulf of Mexico oil rig that led to what Obama called "the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced." He compared the millions of gallons of oil leaking into the ocean to an epidemic "we will be fighting for months and even years."

Obama meets on Wednesday with the chairman of oil giant BP, which owns the broken well at the bottom of the Gulf, and the president made clear he expects BP to pay all the clean-up costs and damages from the massive leak.

He said he will tell BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg to "set aside whatever resources are required to compensate the workers and business owners who have been affected as a result of his company's recklessness."

In response to Obama's speech, a BP spokesperson said that the company shared the president's goals of "shutting off the well as quickly as possible, cleaning up the oil and mitigating the impact on the people and environment of the Gulf Coast," and looked forward to Wednesday's meeting "for a constructive discussion about how best to achieve these mutual goals."

Earlier, senior officials told reporters that negotiations on the BP fund were continuing, with one major unresolved issue being whether workers who lose their jobs due to the government's six-month moratorium on offshore drilling will be eligible to file damage claims.

Republican critics have complained the moratorium is eliminating badly needed jobs as the nation recovers from economic recession, but Obama said the government must ensure the safety of such deep-water operations before allowing them to continue.

(CNN/VOVNews)