BP said its main vessel capturing oil from the huge Gulf of Mexico spill shut down for 10 hours due to a blocked vent, but restarted yesterday after a lightning storm passed.
BP spokesman Robert Wine said the Discoverer Enterprise, a ship siphoning 15,000 to 18,000 barrels of oil per day directly from the containment cap atop the ruptured well, shut down at 3.23 a.m. yesterday) due to a blocked flame arrester.
The device is intended to stop the crude from combusting by extinguishing the flame.
Last Friday, BP recovered a total of some 24,500 barrels of oil, a slightly lower figure than the day before because of the shutdown.
The firm said it had collected its largest volume so far - nearly 30,000 barrels of oil - in a 24-hour period ending late Friday, marginally exceeding their maximum projected production capacity.
Public anger over the conduct of embattled BP chief executive Tony Hayward was likely to mount further as Hayward took time off with his family in Britain, where a boat that he owns was competing at a posh race off the Isle of Wight. BP spokespeople raced to defend their chief's break.
"Still, no matter where he is, he is always in touch with what is happening within BP," spokesman John Curry said.
Wine noted this was Hayward's "first non-working day since this (spill) started" after the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded on April 20 before sinking into the Gulf waters. Eleven workers died in the accident.
Hayward has been skewered by US lawmakers and the American public, outraged by his sardonic English tones and series of flippant comments, including a prediction that the spill would be "very, very modest".
He has found himself very much in the cross-hairs over the massive gusher that has spoiled once-pristine beaches and shorelines, killed wildlife and put a big dent in the Gulf Coast's multi-billion-dollar fishing industry. Obama has said he would fire Hayward if he could.
A day after BP's announcement that Hayward was handing off daily management of his company's spill response to managing director Bob Dudley, an American, questions remained over exactly who was in charge.
Despite BP chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg statement on Sky News television that Dudley would now head BP's response efforts, other company officials said Hayward was still very much in the lead.