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Crews hoped to begin pumping mud and perhaps
cement down the throat of the blown-out oil well at the bottom of
the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday in what BP officials said could be
the method of attack that finally snuffs the spill.

      Engineers planned to probe the busted blowout preventer with an
oil-like liquid to determine whether it could handle the static
kill. If the test is successful, they plan to spend Tuesday through
Thursday pumping the heavy mud down the well.

      Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the government's point man
on the spill response, said Tuesday at a news briefing in Houston
that crews hoped to begin the testing soon and finish by noon.

      "This is a really positive step forward," Allen said. "It's
going to be good news in a time where that hasn't been very much
good news, but it shouldn't be a cause for premature celebration."

      The so-called "static kill" is meant as insurance for the
crews who have spent months fighting the oil spill. The only thing
keeping oil from blowing into the Gulf at the moment is an
experimental cap that has held for more than two weeks but was
never meant to be permanent.

      BP officials had insisted for months that a pair of costly
relief wells were the only surefire way to kill the oil leak but
said Monday that the static kill alone - involving lines running
from a ship to the blown-out well a mile below - might do the
trick.

      BP Senior Vice President Kent Wells said that if the static kill
is successful, the relief wells may not be needed to do the same
thing weeks later, but from the bottom. The primary relief well,
near completion, will still be finished and could be used simply to
ensure the leak is plugged, he said.

      "Even if we were to pump the cement from the top, we will still
continue on with the relief well and confirm that the well is
dead," he said. Either way, "we want to end up with cement in the
bottom of the hole."

      Government officials and company executives have long said the
wells, which can cost about $100 million each, might be the only
way to make certain the oil is contained to its vast undersea
reservoir. A federal task force said about 172 million gallons of
oil made it into the Gulf between April and mid-July, when a
temporary cap bottled up all the oil.

      The task force said actually about 206 million gallons total
gushed out of the mile-deep well but a fleet of boats and other
efforts were able to contain more than 33 million gallons. The 172
million gallons is on the high end of recent estimates that
anywhere from 92 million to 184 million gallons had gushed into the
sea.

      Judging by the latest estimate, BP could be fined up to $5.4
billion under the Clean Water Act, or as much as $21 billion if it
is found to have committed gross negligence or willful misconduct.

      The high-end fine would drop to around $17.6 billion if the
government credits BP for the oil it has recovered, while the
low-end fine would be around $4.5 billion.

      Any fines would be on top of the compensation BP has agreed to
pay to thousands of people harmed by the spill. Under pressure from
the White House, the company set up a $20 billion escrow fund to
pay all claims, including environmental damages and state and local
response costs.

      The company began drilling the primary, 18,000-foot relief well
May 2, 12 days after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and killed
11 workers, and a second backup well May 16. The first well is now
only about 100 feet from the target, and Wells said it could reach
it as early as Aug. 11.

      Allen said Monday that the focus now is on making sure the
static kill is successful. But he cautioned that federal officials
don't see it as "the end all, be all until we get the relief well
done."

      Before the effort can begin, engineers must probe the broken
blowout preventer with an oil-like liquid to decide whether it can
handle the static kill process. They had hoped to begin the
hours-long test Monday but delayed it until Tuesday after a small
leak was discovered in the hydraulic control system.

      Leaks have been repaired, Allen said Tuesday.


      The company's statements Monday might signal that it is more
concerned than it has acknowledged about debris found in the relief
well after it was briefly capped as Tropical Storm Bonnie passed
last week, said Ed Overton, a Louisiana State University
environmental sciences professor.

      Tropical Storm Colin formed far out in the Atlantic on Tuesday,
but early forecasts put it on a track off the East Coast rather
than the Gulf.

      BP and federal officials have managed to contain large parts of
the spill through skimmers, oil-absorbant boom and chemical
dispersants meant to break up the oil.

      Federal regulators have come under fire from critics who say
that BP was allowed to use excessive amounts of the dispersants,
but government officials counter that they have helped dramatically
cut the use of the chemicals since late May.

      The Environmental Protection Agency released a study Monday
concluding that when mixed with oil, chemical dispersants used to
break up the crude in the Gulf are no more toxic to aquatic life
than oil alone.


      Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers
Jeffrey Collins and Harry R. Weber in New Orleans, Ramit
Plushnick-Masti in Houston, and Matthew Daly in Washington.
      

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Crews hoped to begin pumping mud and perhaps
cement down the throat of the blown-out oil well at the bottom of
the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday in what BP officials said could be
the method of attack that finally snuffs the spill.


Gulf crews hope to wrap up kill-attempt tests

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