BP Plc launched a tricky deep-sea operation to choke off a gushing oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday, but President Barack Obama cautioned Americans there was no guarantee it would work. BP is under intense pressure from Obama to bring a swift end to the five-week-old spill that threatens an environmental catastrophe and has ignited a political storm.
Obama said if successful, BP's latest plan to cap the deep-sea well should greatly reduce or eliminate the flow of hundreds of thousands of gallons (liters) of crude billowing into the Gulf. BP planned to use undersea robots to inject heavy fluids into the mile- (1.6 km-) deep well and then pump in cement to block the oil flow. The so-called "top kill" procedure has never been attempted at such depths.
BP said in a statement that it began the operation at 1300 CST (1800 GMT). Interior Secretary Ken Salazar appeared to have jumped the gun when he told reporters at a congressional hearing about an hour earlier that the process was already under way. The gushing oil leak threatens some of the United States' richest fisheries and has already soiled more than 70 miles (113 km) of Louisiana's 400-mile (644 km) coastline. The US Coast Guard approved the top kill operation, the most ambitious effort to date to cap the well, after government scientists said it was safe to proceed, according to a statement by the oil spill response command center.
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