President Obama will attend a briefing in Louisiana today.
View full sizeThis image made from video released by British Petroleum (BP PLC) early Friday shows drilling mud escaping from the broken pipe on the gushing oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. BP started pumping heavy mud into the leaking Gulf of Mexico well Wednesday and said everything was going as planned in the company's boldest attempt yet to plug the gusher that has spewed millions of gallons of oil over the last five weeks.ROBERT, La. (AP) -- It could be late Friday or over the Memorial Day weekend before the world knows if BP's latest effort has succeeded in stopping the surge of oil in the Gulf of Mexico that has already surpassed the Exxon Valdez disaster as the biggest oil spill in U.S. history.
After an 18-hour delay Thursday to assess its efforts and bring in more materials, BP resumed pumping heavy drilling mud into the blown-out well 5,000 feet underwater in a procedure known as a top kill.
As the world waited, President Barack Obama announced major new restrictions on drilling projects, and the head of the federal agency that regulates the industry resigned under pressure, becoming the highest-ranking political casualty of the crisis so far.
» Watch a live video feed of the oil leak from BP's remotely operated vehicle.
In another troubling discovery, marine scientists said they have spotted a huge new plume of what they believe to be oil deep beneath the Gulf, stretching 22 miles from the leaking wellhead northeast toward Mobile Bay, Ala. They fear it could have resulted from using chemicals a mile below the surface to break up the oil.
Obama was scheduled to attend a briefing Friday at the U.S. Coast Guard Station in Grand Isle, La., by Adm. Thad Allen, who is overseeing the response to the spill. It would be his second visit to the region since the disaster began.
At the White House on Thursday, Obama acknowledged that his administration could have done a better job dealing with the spill and that it misjudged the industry's ability to handle a worst-case scenario.
"I take responsibility. It is my job to make sure that everything is done to shut this down," Obama said at a news conference, where he announced a series of new restrictions on oil drilling projects.
BP PLC insisted the top kill was progressing as planned, though the company acknowledged drilling mud was escaping from the broken pipe along with the leaking crude.
"The fact that we had a bunch of mud going up the riser isn't ideal but it's not necessarily indicative of a problem," spokesman Tom Mueller said.
Early Thursday, officials said the process was going well, but later in the day they announced pumping had been suspended 16 hours earlier. BP did not characterize the suspension as a setback, and Eric Smith, associate director of the Tulane Energy Institute, said the move did not indicate the top kill had failed.
"The good news is that they pumped in up to 65 barrels a minute and the thing didn't blow apart," Smith said. "It's taken the most pressure it needs to see and it's held together."
The top kill is the latest in a string of attempts to stop the oil that has been spewing since the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon exploded April 20, killing 11 workers.
If the procedure works, BP will inject cement into the well to seal it permanently. If it doesn't, the company has a number of backup plans. Either way, crews will continue to drill two relief wells, considered the only surefire way to stop the leak.
A top kill has never been attempted before so deep underwater. BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said the company is also considering shooting small, dense rubber balls or assorted junk such as golf balls and rubber scraps to stop up a crippled five-story piece of equipment known as a blowout preventer to keep the mud from escaping.
Related links
» Obama heading to Louisiana for oil spill update [Associated Press]
» Spill Could Make BP Vulnerable [Reuters]
» Nothing learned from Hurricane Katrina: Inept leaders crushing New Orleans again after BP oil spill [NY Daily News]