US president Barack Obama today defended his handling of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, while BP Plc said it aims to siphon off most of the oil gushing from the ruptured deep-sea wellhead within days.
Using robot submarines, British energy giant BP has clamped a containment cap over the ruptured wellhead a mile (1.6 km) below the ocean surface.
But initial estimates of how much crude was being collected and siphoned safely to the surface amounted to a fraction of the oil that continued to leak from the ruined well.
Obama has faced criticism that the US government has not done enough to tackle the crisis.
He said the government had been "mobilized on every front," with more than 1,900 ships and 20,000 people helping clean up the spill.
The president yesterday paid his third visit to the Gulf Coast since the offshore oil rig blowout.
BP, facing a US criminal probe amid mounting lawsuits, dwindling investor confidence and growing questions about its credit-worthiness, delayed word on whether it would suspend an upcoming dividend payment to shareholders, as some US politicians demanded.
BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said the containment cap placed on the well pipe "should work" by capturing upward of 90 per cent of the gushing crude.
He said it would take a few days for the system to reach full performance.
Eleven crew members of the BP-contracted Deepwater Horizon drilling rig died in the explosion that began the disaster.
Reuters