Oil Spill Containment | featured news

BP Plc (BP.L) has hit a snag in its attempt to saw through a riser pipe in a risky operation to funnel leaking oil from a blown-out Gulf of Mexico well to the surface, the top US official overseeing the cleanup effort said on ...

Robot submarines carried equipment and cut small pipes at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico on Monday to prepare to place a new containment valve over the blown-out well this week, while BP crews began working on yet another containment plan that could be added after the cut-and-cap effort.

The effort to place a massive containment dome over a gushing underwater wellhead in the Gulf of Mexico was dealt a setback when a large volume of hydrates -- icelike crystals that form when gas combines with water -- accumulated inside the vessel, a BP official said Saturday.