After giving up on Saturday an attempt to pump heavy fluids and blocking materials into the leaking well to "kill" it, BP is pursuing another option from its undersea toolbox.
But BP warns that the new procedure, which will try to fit a containment cap over the leaking well, could take between four and seven days. Even then success is not guaranteed because it has never been attempted before at the depth -- a mile down -- where the oil is leaking.
BP Managing Director Robert Dudley told NBC's "Meet the Press" the company would know by the end of the week whether the new containment effort worked.
The next BP step would involve undersea robots using diamond-rimmed saws to cut off a pipe over the well to put in place a containment device that would try to siphon off most of the leaking oil and gas up to a tanker ship on the surface.
Dudley said he did not think BP CEO Tony Hayward, who has faced heavy criticism, should be forced to resign.
A surer solution to the leak, a relief well already being drilled, is not expected to be finished until early August.
This means crude oil continues to spew out daily, feeding a huge, fragmented slick that has already polluted marshlands teeming with wildlife and rich fisheries in Louisiana.
There could be oil coming up until August." Browner told CBS's "Face The Nation," "We are prepared for the worst."
Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu called on BP to immediately invest $1 billion to protect marshes, wetlands and estuaries across the region. "While we may not be able to plug the leaking well right away, there is nothing that should stop us from getting help to the Gulf Coast immediately," she said.
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