WASHINGTON - Engineers launched their latest effort to curb the crude oil gushing from a busted underwater well in the Gulf of Mexico Thursday.
BP engineers said their best chance to control the underwater oil leak now rests with a 6-inch-wide tube that they'd try to insert into a jagged 21-inch pipe that's spewing oil onto the Gulf seabed.
BP crews were expected to insert the tube, which is surrounded by a rubber seal and attached to a tanker at the surface, sometime Thursday night, said BP spokesman Mark Proegler.
"We'll be operational as soon as possible, over the next several days," he said.
The tube will be inserted into the larger of two leaks, the one that's releasing about 85 percent of the estimated 210,000 gallons of crude a day, Proegler said.
If the tube fails, then BP officials have a backup plan: lower a steel and concrete dome called a "top hat" over the leak. The top hat, 4 feet in diameter and 5 feet tall, would be attached to a drill pipe that would siphon the oil to a ship at the surface.
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The "top hat" has been resting on the seafloor since Tuesday and originally was planned as BP's next attempt to control the spill. There was no explanation for why BP engineers decided to try the insertion tube first.
On Thursday, BP estimated that it's spent about $450 million on fighting the oil spill and drilling a relief well since the Deepwater Horizon exploded, killing 11 workers. That's $100 million more than estimates released earlier in the week.
Latest developments
Thursday's key developments in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill:
• Transocean Ltd., the Switzerland-based offshore contractor that owned the Deepwater Horizon rig, filed a petition in Houston federal court seeking to limit company's liability from oil spill to less than $27 million. The move will allow the company to consolidate more than 100 spill-related lawsuits before a single federal judge in Houston.
• Six U.S. senators introduced a bill to permanently ban oil and gas drilling off California, Oregon and Washington state coasts.
• Senate Democrats lost a bid to raise the liability cap for oil companies to $10 billion when Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, raised objections. They vowed to try again.
• U.S. Coast Guard officials said there is "no imminent threat of oil impacting Mississippi, Alabama or Florida" with the current projections of southeasterly winds through the week.
• Mexican officials expressed concern that the oil spill could reach their coasts if the leak is not stopped by August, when currents start to reverse and flow south. They also worry about the the upcoming hurricane season.
Wire reports
