BP: "Top Kill" Plan Might be Working

BP is suggesting that there might be signs of hope with its latest plan to stop the oil spill:

The top kill technique uses undersea robots to help inject heavy fluids known as drilling mud and ultimately cement down about a mile to the sea-bed well to stifle the oil flow.

In a sign that BP and the government were aligning after weeks of tension between the two camps, BP chief executive Tony Hayward and U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu monitored operations together in Houston.

Hayward said late Wednesday that the operation was proceeding as planned in the first hours and that he needed 24 hours to know if it would work.

The company has lost about a quarter of its market value since the April 20 explosion and investors could buy BP shares if the well is sealed in this attempt after a few failures.

BP chief operating officer Doug Suttles said on Wednesday it appears drilling mud, not oil, was gushing from a ruptured undersea well six hours into an effort to halt a growing oil spill.

If the top kill fails, BP has other methods in its arsenal and the next approach would likely to be a containment device over the broken blowout preventer, a structure at the top of the well on the ocean floor, Suttles said.

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