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BP says capturing some of oil leak, trying for more

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GALLIANO, La. (Reuters)—Energy giant BP P.L.C. said on Monday it was capturing about one-fifth of the estimated oil gushing from its ruptured undersea Gulf of Mexico well and hoped to increase that amount before trying to fully stop the flow later in the week.

But London-based BP, whose shares recovered on news of the limited containment, still faced tough questions from the U.S. government and public over the extent of the spill threatening economic and environmental calamity to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

"We're throwing absolutely everything at this," BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles told CNN. The spill threatens to eclipse the 1989 Exxon Valdez accident off Alaska as the worst U.S. ecological disaster.

Mr. Suttles said a suction tube inserted into the well riser pipe on the ocean floor, almost a mile down, had been operating for 24 hours and was siphoning off 1,000 barrels per day, about one-fifth of the 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons) BP estimated to be leaking per day.

Other estimates say much more oil is really leaking out.

"This is just containing the flow. Later this week, hopefully before the end of the week, we'll make our next attempt to actually fully stop the flow," Mr. Suttles told NBC's "Today."

The next move would involve a so-called "top kill" option in which engineers using undersea robots would try to shoot heavy "mud," a mixture of synthetic materials, into the well to form a barrier to prevent oil and gas from escaping.

The Obama administration greeted the news cautiously, saying the tube insertion was "not a solution to the problem."

Nevertheless, BP shares rose more than 2% on the report of some success in containing the oil well leak.

Investors have already knocked around $30 billion off BP's value over the spill, which followed an April 20 explosion aboard a rig drilling the BP-owned well. Eleven workers were killed, and survivors' accounts to the media have raised questions about whether safety controls were fully observed.

In comments to U.S. media over the weekend, scientists said they had found huge underwater "plumes of oil" several miles long in the Gulf of Mexico, suggesting much wider impact to the marine habitat than previously thought.

Mr. Suttles said he had not yet seen these studies.

Risk of oil spread

While the U.S. Gulf Coast has so far been spared a massive landfall of heavy oil, small amounts of oil debris, in the form of surface sheen and tar balls have come ashore in outlying parts of the coastline of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

There are fears that as the slick, which is broken into segments, spreads through the action of winds and current, it could run into the so-called "Loop Current" that could take it down to the Florida Keys and even up the U.S. East Coast.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecast that with light winds forecast from the south and the west over the next few days, "ocean models indicate that any tar balls leading the southern edge of the plume could begin moving more to the south west and potentially into the Loop Current."

Despite the positive news on the containment effort, BP still faces a barrage of criticism and intense scrutiny from U.S. authorities and congressional inquiries.

Sen. Joe Lieberman's Homeland Security Committee will conduct a hearing on the oil spill on Monday.

A U.S Labor Department official told the Financial Times that BP has a "systematic safety problem" at its refineries.

"BP executives, they talk a good line. They say they want to improve safety," Jordan Barab, a senior official at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, told the paper.

"But it doesn't always translate down to the refineries themselves. They still have a systematic safety problem."

Last year, U.S. regulators slapped a record $87.4 million fine on BP for failing to fix safety violations at its Texas City, Texas, refinery after a deadly 2005 explosion.

Questions over safety

President Barack Obama, who has publicly rebuked BP and its partners in the ruptured well for a "ridiculous spectacle" of trading blame for the accident, is keeping heavy pressure on the company to foot the entire bill for the cleanup and pay out all claims of economic damages to regional fishing and tourism businesses and livelihoods.

"We said from day one we'll take responsibility for the spill...We're taking responsibility for the spill not just in words, we've set up claim centers across the Gulf coast," BP Managing Director Robert Dudley said on ABC's "Good Morning America."

"We will pay all legitimate claims," he added.

On the CBS news show "60 Minutes" on Sunday, rig survivor Mike Williams described some of the disturbing incidents that preceded the accident, including another crewman's discovery of chunks of rubber in the drilling fluid.

"He thought it was important...I recall asking the supervisor if this was out of the ordinary. And he says, 'Oh, it's, it's no big deal.' And I thought, 'How can it be not a big deal? There's chunks of our seal now missing,'" he said.

He also said BP was applying pressure to get the drilling operation done faster.

Along the coast Gulf, residents are angry.

Dean Ansardi, 53, a shrimp boat captain in the south Louisiana village of Cocodrie, gestured at an empty pier while sharing a drink with friends.

"That's a shrimp deck. People come in to unload their shrimp. You see anybody unloading now?...It takes me $3,500 to leave the dock for a seven-day trip. That's fuel, ice and groceries. And then I couldn't go out. Who do you think is footing the bill?" he said.

Officials have stressed the spill so far has had minimal impact on the shoreline and wildlife, but there are concerns the oil slick will reach fragile bayous and marshes teeming with shrimp, oysters, crabs, fish, birds and other wildlife.