British Petroleum's 'top kill' operation attempting to shut off the leaking Gulf of Mexico oil well will carry on through today and longer, if the company's engineers deem it necessary.
The tricky manoeuvre started on Wednesday and involves pumping heavy fluids and other material into the well shaft to stifle the flow. BP had said repeatedly that it needed another 24 to 48 hours to know whether it would succeed, but backed off of giving time estimates today.
"The top kill operation continues and will carry on throughout the day today. We're not putting any time constraints on the operation - it will progress as operations teams deem appropriate through the day today and longer if necessary," company spokesman Tom Mueller said in an email.
Beleaguered Louisiana residents heard from President Barack Obama and BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward on separate visits to the Gulf coast on Friday as they tried to get a handle on a crisis damaging the credibility of both the government and BP.
Obama faced criticism that he responded too slowly to the environmental catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico and assured Louisianians during his five-hour visit that they "will not be left behind" and that the "buck stops" with him.
Mr Hayward visited the site of the April 20 rig explosion that killed 11 workers and unleashed the oil, and said the energy giant needed up to two more days to determine if the top kill will stop the underwater gusher once and for all.
"We're continuing because we are making progress," Mr Hayward said on a drilling ship at the site.
President Obama is caught in a tight spot: there is not much he can do about the well other than apply pressure to BP to get it right and put his best scientists in the room. The government has no deep-sea oil technology of its own.
The president is anxious to avoid comparisons to former president George W. Bush after his government's much-criticized response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Polls show that Americans are losing faith in the Obama administration's response to the spill as oil seeps farther into fragile marshlands and shuts down a good chunk of the lucrative fishing industry.
Still, BP gets worse marks and faces anger over lack of proper clean-up of the 100 miles (160 km) of Louisiana coastline and the oil in the gulf.
Concocting revenge fantasies has become a popular sport.
A Louisiana resident suggested in a letter to the Times Picayune newspaper that BP executives be tarred in spilt oil, rolled in blackened pelican feathers and sent to the guillotine so their severed heads could be used in a "junk shot" to clog the well.
The creators of the "B-Pee Day" Facebook page urged readers to urinate on BP gas stations, declaring "They leaked on us, it's time to take a leak on them."
Reuters