BP officials yesterday expressed their disappointment at failing to plug the uncontrolled flow of oil from the worst spill in US history.
Six weeks after the catastrophe began, oil giant BP PLC is trying to find at least a temporary fix to the spewing well underneath the Gulf that's fouling beaches, wildlife and marshland.
The relief wells currently being drilled - which are supposed to be a better long-term solution - will not be ready for at least two months.
BP said yesterday that the procedure known as the "top kill" failed after engineers tried for three days to overwhelm the crippled well with heavy drilling mud and junk 5,000 feet underwater.
Robert Dudley, BP's managing director, said on Fox News that company officials were disappointed that they have "failed to wrestle this beast to the ground".
Skepticism is growing that BP can solve the crisis.
Republican Ed Markey, who leads a congressional committee investigating the disaster, told CBS television's Face the Nation yesterday that he had "no confidence whatsoever in BP.
"So I don't think that people should really believe what BP is saying in terms of the likelihood of anything that they're doing is going to turn out as they're predicting," the Massachusetts Democrat said.
Now, BP hopes to saw through a pipe leading out from the well and cap it with a funnel-like device using the same remotely guided undersea robots that have failed in other tries to stop the gusher.
Even that effort won't end the disaster - BP officials have only pledged it will capture a majority of the oil. None of the remaining options would stop the flow entirely or capture all the crude before it reaches the Gulf's waters. Engineers will use remotely guided undersea robots to try to lower a cap onto the leak after cutting off part of a broken pipe leading out from the well. The funnel-like device is similar to a huge containment box that failed before when it became clogged with ice-like slush.
Mr Dudley said officials learned a lot from that failure and will pump warm water through the pipes to prevent the ice problems.
The spill is the worst in US history - exceeding even the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster - and has dumped between 18 million gallons and 40 million gallons into the Gulf, according to government estimates. The leak began after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded on April 20, killing 11 people.
"This scares everybody, the fact that we can't make this well stop flowing, the fact that we haven't succeeded so far," BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said yesterday.
"Many of the things we're trying have been done on the surface before, but have never been tried at 5,000 feet."
He said cutting off the damaged riser isn't expected to cause the flow rate of leaking oil to increase significantly.