Under pressure, BP tries again to contain oil spill

GALLIANO, Louisiana (Reuters) - Energy giant BP made another attempt to siphon gushing oil from an offshore well as political pressure and public outrage increased over the company's slow progress at stopping environmental disaster.

London-based BP Plc admitted on Saturday that its latest attempt to contain the spill had failed. A top executive expressed optimism that the tricky undersea effort to redirect the flow of oil would be operational by Sunday morning, but that did not happen.

The latest fix involves guiding undersea robots to insert a small tube into a 21-inch (53-cm) pipe, known as a riser, to funnel the oil to a ship at the surface.

Crude oil is gushing unchecked into the sea from a blown-out offshore well a mile deep on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico, threatening an ecological and economic calamity along the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Officials said that so far the spill has had minimal impact on the shoreline and wildlife, but oil debris and tarballs were washing up on barrier islands and outlying beaches in at least a dozen places in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi.

"As nasty as they are, they are more manageable than a slick. They can be collected. They can be cleaned and we have crews doing that," Coast Guard Petty Officer Luke Pinneo said.

Scientists and residents of the Gulf Coast say a far greater concern is the anticipated encroachment of oil into the environmentally fragile bayous and marshes teeming with shrimp, oysters, crabs, fish, birds and other wildlife.

Workers in Louisiana were outraged at comments by BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward suggesting that the size of the spill was "tiny" compared to the size of the Gulf of Mexico.

"I think he's nuts," said Kenneth Theriot, 56, a shrimp boat owner and captain in the Louisiana town of Chauvin. "I don't care how big the Gulf is. It's all coming here."

Shrimpers and fishermen have been idled by commercial fishing closures imposed because of the spill.

Hayward's comments were published in Britain's Guardian newspaper.

BP's initial attempt to insert the tube into the riser ran into trouble when the metal frame that supports the siphon shifted, BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles told reporters in Robert, Louisiana, on Saturday.

Workers were still trying to get the siphoning tube inserted on Sunday.

"We continued to work toward deploying the tool overnight and hooking up with the riser. Operations continue to make progress," a BP spokesman said.

The spill began after an April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig, which killed 11 workers. It threatens to eclipse the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill off Alaska as the worst U.S. ecological disaster ever.

OIL PLUMES

A New York Times report on Saturday said scientists had found huge oil plumes in the Gulf, including one as large as 10 miles long, three miles wide and 300 feet thick.

It said the discovery provided evidence that the leak could be "substantially worse" than estimates given previously by BP and the government.

BP is facing growing political pressure to prove it will pay for all of the costs related to the spill.

"The public has a right to a clear understanding of BP's commitment to redress all of the damage that has occurred or that will occur in the future as a result of the oil spill," Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said in a letter to Hayward.

Concerns have been raised about current U.S. law that limits to $75 million energy companies' liability for lost business and local tax revenues from oil spills.

Randy Arceneaux, 28, a fisherman and deckhand in the Cajun village of Cocodrie, deep in Louisiana bayou country, said he was despondent about more than his lost income.

"The food that actually goes on my table came from these waters," Arceneaux told Reuters. "People are talking about the money they're losing. It's not just the money. It's the food, it's your livelihood. It's what you were taught, it's what you were raised on, and we'd like to pass it on to our kids."

(Additional reporting by Jeff Mason and Matthew Bigg; Editing by Stacey Joyce)