British Petroleum (BP) engineers on Monday rushed a new high-risk operation to contain the catastrophic Gulf of Mexico oil spill now described as the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history. But hours after the energy giant acknowledged the failure of its “top-kill” attempt to plug the gushing underwater well, company officials said it could take a week to carry out an effort to place a cap over the leak, and BP and government officials warned the spill may not be stopped until August. “Right now, we are going to a containment operation,” BP managing director Bob Dudley told CNN about the latest attempt to deal with the ruptured well more than 1,500 meters under the surface. “Because this is being done at 5,000 feet with robots, we're going to take our time, do it extremely carefully. By the end of the week, we should have this in place.” While the top kill would have sealed the well using heavy drilling fluid and cement, the new effort seeks only to contain the majority of the leak, and might even temporarily increase the amount of oil gushing into the gulf, officials warned. BP is preparing a containment cap to place above a lower marine riser package (LMRP), which is a piece of equipment that sits on top of the failed blowout preventer at the seabed. The White House said BP would start cutting a pipe that rises out of the LMRP on Monday or Tuesday. If the containment operation works-and BP expects to know later this week-then at least some of the leaking oil could be piped to the surface. The leak will only be sealed when BP completes drilling two relief wells, but those are not expected to be ready until August, chief executive Tony Hayward said. “There's no doubt that the ultimate solution lies on the relief well, which is in August,” he said Sunday as he toured the Louisiana fishing hub of Venice, largely idled by the spill. The drilling of two relief wells started this month. It is an expensive but reliable way to intercept and cap the leaking well that ruptured with a deadly drilling-rig explosion on April 20. In the meantime, BP needs “to be in the mind-set of containment in the sub-sea, containment on the surface, and defending the shoreline in a very aggressive way,” Hayward said. The Obama administration, facing strong criticism that it has been slow to respond to the crisis, also is looking toward the relief-well solution in August. “There could be oil coming up until August,” top White House energy advisor Carol Browner told CBS News on Sunday. “We are prepared for the worst.”
