BP has said that – if successful – the procedure will be able to get only a majority of the oil, not all of it, and the Obama administration said on Sunday that the amount of oil leaking from the ruptured well could increase as much as 20 per cent while efforts were made to cap it.
Experts also warned that the operation was risky because a bend in the damaged riser pipe was likely to be restricting the flow of oil.
"If they can't get that valve on, things will get much worse," Philip Johnson, an engineering professor at the University of Alabama, told the Associated Press news agency.
"It's a scary proposition."
BP engineers have said that a permanent solution to the leak, a relief well currently being drilled, will not be ready until August.
"We are going to have to wait a long time for a definitive solution to this crisis, which is really very bad news," our correspondent said.
"And it's not just the damage on shore. We are hearing more and more from scientists and oceanographers about what's going on under the sea, and will be for years if not decades to come," Spicer said.
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