While President Obama tours coastal Louisiana, BP is still desperately trying to plug its leaking well in the Gulf of Mexico. Initial forecasts were that the company's "top kill" bid to close the leak would be deemed a success or failure by now. But the oil giant had to halt the effort Thursday for 18 hours as the procedure for injecting heavyweight mud into the damaged well went awry.
On the CBS "Early Show" Friday morning, BP CEO Tony Hayward placed the odds of success at 60 to 70 percent and said the top kill was progressing as planned, according to the Associated Press.
"I believe it will be around 48 hours before we'll have clarity as to whether or not it has been successful," he said.
He added: "Clearly I'm as anxious as everyone in America is to get this thing done."
If the procedure fails, BP is expected to attempt two other options, Reuters said. The first involves cutting the bent section of pipe from the riser — the pipe leading from the well to the water's surface — to divert "most" of the leak to a drillship. The second plan is to place a second blowout preventer atop the one that failed after the April 20 explosion.
Another approach would be to drill two relief wells at the leak site, but those structures wouldn't be complete until August.
Meanwhile, Gulf Coast residents are hoping that the top kill will work — but at this late stage of the crisis, it has become hard for BP executives to get the public to take their pronouncements seriously. As comedian Denis Leary put it on Twitter Thursday night: "BP: efforts to plug oil spill going as planned. In other news: so is the hunt for Bin Laden."
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