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BP used underwater robots a mile beneath
the ocean Thursday to try to put a lid on the Gulf oil gusher.


      Live video showed that an inverted funnel-like cap slightly
wider than a severed pipe was being maneuvered into place over the
oil spewing from a busted well. However, the gushing oil made it
difficult to tell if the cap was fitting well. BP spokesman Toby
Odone said he had no immediate information on whether the cap was
successfully attached.


      A rubber seal on the inside will attempt to keep oil from
escaping, though engineers acknowledge some crude will still come
out.


      BP sliced off the main pipe on the leaking oil well with giant
shears in the latest bid to curtail the worst oil spill in U.S.
history, but the cut was jagged, and a looser fitting cap will be
needed.


      "We'll have to see when we get the containment cap on it just
how effective it is," said Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the
government's point man for the disaster.


      BP PLC turned to the giant shears after a diamond-tipped saw
became stuck in the pipe halfway through the job, yet another
frustrating delay in the six-week-old spill.

      If the cap can be put on successfully, BP will siphon the oil
and gas to a tanker on the surface.


      "It's an important milestone, and in some sense, it's just the
beginning," BP CEO Tony Hayward said.


      This latest attempt is risky because slicing away the section of
the 20-inch-wide riser removed a kink in the pipe, and could
temporarily increase the flow of oil by as much as 20 percent.


      Live video footage showed oil spewing unimpeded from the top of
the blowout preventer, but Allen said it was unclear whether the
flow had increased.


      "I don't think we'll know until the containment cap is seated
on there," he said. "We'll have to wait and see."


      Crews will also use methanol to try to prevent icylike crystals
from forming on the inside of the cap. At this depth a mile
underwater, the near-freezing temperatures can cause a buildup up
of hydrates, which foiled the company's attempt to place a 100-ton,
four-story dome over the leak about a month ago.


      Meanwhile, newly disclosed internal Coast Guard documents from
the day after the explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig about
50 miles off the Louisiana coast indicated that U.S. officials were
warning of a leak of 336,000 gallons per day of crude from the well
in the event of a complete blowout.


      The well didn't have such a failure. But the volume turned out
to be much closer to that figure than the 42,000 gallons per day
that BP first estimated. Weeks later that was revised to 210,000
gallons. Now, an estimated 500,000 to 1 million gallons of crude is
believed to be leaking daily.


      The Center for Public Integrity, which initially reported the
Coast Guard logs, said it obtained them from Rep. Darrell Issa,
R-Calif., ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government
Reform Committee.


      White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said the president was
worried about a leak much greater.


      "Which is exactly why he ordered the entire federal government
- on the day the rig collapsed - to treat this as the No. 1
priority and to devote every resource needed to respond to this
incident and investigate its cause."


      The logs also showed early in the disaster that remote
underwater robots were unable to activate the rig's blowout
preventer, which was supposed to shut off the flow from the well in
the event of such a catastrophic failure.


      BP has failed so far to plug the well.


      The damage to the environment was chilling on East Grand Terre
Island along the Louisiana coast, where workers found birds coated
in thick, black goo. Images shot by an Associated Press
photographer show Brown pelicans drenched in thick oil, struggling
and flailing in the surf.


      Anywhere between 21 million and 46 million gallons of oil has
spewed into the Gulf, according to government estimates.


      BP's Hayward promised Thursday that the company would clean up
every drop of oil and "restore the shoreline to its original
state."


      "BP will be here for a very long time. We realize this is just
the beginning," he said.

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Disasters

Live video showed that an inverted funnel-like cap slightly
wider than a pipe was being maneuvered into place Thursday night
over the oil spewing from a busted well. However, the gushing oil
made it very difficult to tell if the cap was fitting well.

BP trying to put a lid on the Gulf oil gusher

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