Telecomunicaciones y tecnología

BP readies another attempt at stopping oil spill

By Mary Milliken

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Under intense pressure from the Obama administration, the chief executive of BP Plc said he expects to decide later on Wednesday whether to proceed with a tricky "top kill" procedure to try to contain leaking oil in the Gulf of Mexico.

The massive oil leak is threatening an ecological and economic disaster along the U.S. Gulf coast.

"Later this morning I will review that with the team, and I will take a final decision as to whether or not we should proceed," BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward told the NBC "Today" show on Wednesday.

If he determines it is safe to proceed, the procedure is expected to happen on Wednesday, he said. He added it will take a day or two to determine whether the procedure worked.

In its attempt to plug the leak, BP plans to use undersea robots to try to inject heavy fluids into the mile- (1.6 km) deep well and then cement into the seabed well to block oil flow in the "top kill" operation. The complex manoeuvre has never been attempted at such depths.

If this effort joins the list of BP failures to plug the leak, U.S. President Barack Obama's government may have no choice but to take central charge of the response to what is considered the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

If it fails, Hayward said, the next step would be to use a containment device that would be sealed on top and would be deployed in three or four days after the "top kill" attempt.

Florida Democratic Senator Bill Nelson said if BP fails to plug the leak on Wednesday, Obama must seize control of the effort immediately.

"If this thing is not fixed today, I think the president doesn't have any choice -- and he better go in, completely take over, perhaps with the military in charge -- not because the military can do this," Nelson said on CNN. "But the military has the apparatus, the organisation by which it can bring together the civilian agencies of government and to get this thing done."

DELAYS AND FAILURES

So far, the company's attempts to plug the massive leak have been dogged by delays and failures, and government and public frustration with the company has risen. Residents of the U.S. Gulf coast region are particularly concerned about the impact of spreading oil on wildlife and area shorelines.

Obama has told aides in recent days to "plug the damn hole" and he will head to the Louisiana Gulf coast on Friday for the second time since the April 20 rig blast that killed 11 and unleashed the oil.

Hayward has been criticized for his earlier comments that the environmental impact of the spill would be modest.

"We have let people down in our defence of the shore, and we are going to redouble our efforts," he told NBC, saying a visit to a nearby beach on Tuesday left him "devastated."

"There were a whole series of failures here, the blowout preventer failed on three separate occasions," Hayward told CNN, adding the company was turning over the findings of its own inquiry to U.S. authorities.

But Hayward denied that the failures had "anything to do" with the British-based company trying to save costs. He called the well blowout and rig explosion that triggered the spill an "unprecedented accident" and added: "This will be a transforming incident in the history of deepwater exploration."

Despite frustration with BP -- which admitted that it may have made a "fundamental mistake" in working on the rig hours before the explosion -- the government relies almost exclusively on the energy titan's deepwater technology.

A CBS News poll released on Tuesday showed 70 percent of Americans disapprove of BP's handling of the disaster but 45 percent give the Obama administration a negative rating despite his administration's efforts to show it is on top of the crisis.

BP gave the "top kill" plan a 60 percent to 70 percent chance of halting the leak. Industry experts at the Reuters Global Energy Summit said it is "doable" and has a 50-50 percent chance of working, while playing down concerns of a bigger leak.

BP is in a race against time to save the Gulf of Mexico's unique ecosystem and lucrative fishing industry, as well as the company's reputation and its heavy presence in the United States.

BP has lost about a quarter of its markets value -- or $50 billion (34 billion pounds) -- since the disaster began to unfold. BP shares were up nearly 1 percent on Wednesday.

The London-based company has estimated that about 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons/795,000 litres) have been leaking every day, although some scientists have given much higher numbers for the size of the leak -- up to 20 times more.

BP told congressional investigators on Tuesday that pressure tests on a drill pipe hours before the deadly explosion that caused the leak showed a "fundamental mistake," a memo released by two congressmen showed.

The memo, by Representatives Henry Waxman and Bart Stupak, who were briefed by BP about the progress of its internal investigation, also said problems were found in equipment meant to provide fail-safe protection against a blowout.

With no end in sight for the environmental catastrophe, analysts say the oil spill could be a major political liability for Obama ahead of November elections that are widely expected to erode his Democratic Party's control of the U.S. Congress.

(Additional reporting by Kristin Hays in Houston, Pascal Fletcher in Miami and Susan Heavey in Washington; editing by Will Dunham and Mohammad Zargham)

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