BP: 'Top kill' fails to stop flow so far

By Joel Achenbach and David A. Fahrenthold
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 27, 2010

An attempt at a "top kill" on the leaking gulf oil well has failed to stop the oil billowing out -- at least so far, a BP official said Thursday afternoon. The official said BP would try again later tonight.

Doug Suttles, BP's chief operating officer, said that on Wednesday the company had blasted high-pressure mud into the leaking well two times, trying to force the oil down in a procedure compared to using one firehose against another.

After doing it twice, Suttles said, the company stopped about midnight Wednesday, and spent Thursday assessing the plumes still shooting out of broken machinery. He said that company officials believed the two efforts had probably made some progress.

"I think some people believe it has. Some people believe it's less obvious it has," Suttles said. "What we do believe we've done is successfully pumped some mud, some of this drilling mud, into this wellbore."

(More here.)