BP said yesterday it was capturing some 10,000 barrels of crude a day from the ruptured Gulf of Mexico well, raising hopes it is now containing most of the worst oil leak in US history.
Still as it enjoys its first major success in capturing oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico, BP is preparing an additional containment bid that it hopes will further curb the flow of crude.
The newest effort will accompany a containment cap placed over the leaking blow-out preventer (BOP) last Thursday, which is gathering the oil so it can be siphoned to a container ship on the surface.
With an environmental catastrophe unfolding on the shores of Louisiana and fears for neighbouring southern states, BP chief's executive officer Tony Hayward said a cap fitted on the leaking pipe 1,600 metres down on the sea bed appeared to be working.
"As we speak, the containment cap is producing around 10,000 barrels of oil a day to the surface," the under-fire Mr Hayward told the BBC.
However, the ship gathering the crude has a maximum capacity of 15,000 barrels a day, much less than the highest estimates of how much is spilling from the leaking well each day.
The US official in charge of the government operation, Admiral Thad Allen, agreed with the estimate, but refused to be drawn on what percentage of the leaking oil that figure represented.
"The second effort is we're going to be attaching lines to the BOP itself and extracting oil out of the BOP up to a separate containment vessel," BP spokesman Mark Proegler said.
The bid will use much of the same equipment deployed during BP's failed effort to flood the BOP with heavy drilling fluid called "mud", including the Q4000 surface ship used during the unsuccessful "top kill" process.
Pipes will "be attached to what's called the choke and kill lines and instead of pushing mud in we'll be pulling oil out", Mr Proegler said.
"There's a single riser or pipe coming down from the Q4000, there's a manifold down there, so there will be probably be several lines coming from the BOP that will be connected to the manifold," he added.
Government scientists have estimated that up to 19,000 barrels a day could be spewing into the Gulf since an April 20 explosion sank the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig just off the Louisiana coast.
"We're not going to know how much oil is coming out until we're able to optimise the production, and that's what they're doing right now," Mr Allen told ABC News This Week.
"They are slowly raising production. It was 6,000 a day before and it was 10,000 yesterday," he added, also speaking of the anguish being felt by everyone involved in the momentous operation to stop the disaster.
"I think everybody is anguished over this. You know, I've been working on the water for 39 years. This is just completely distressing, and it's very frustrating," he told CNN.