BP exec: 48-hours wait before results of 'top kill' efforts

The Daily News reports: The chief executive of BP says it will be about 48 hours before they know if pumping heavy mud into a blown-out well is successful in stopping the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

CEO Tony Hayward (pictured above) said that his confidence level in the well-plugging bid remains at about 60 to 70 percent.

BP began injecting mud into the well on Wednesday afternoon in an untested bid to end a spill that has surpassed the Exxon Valdez disaster since it started after an oil rig explosion April 20 that killed 11 workers.

The maneuver, called a top kill, has worked on land but never been tried in deep water. Hayward said BP engineers had completed a second phase by pumping what he called "loss prevention material" into the blowout preventer, a massive piece of machinery that sits atop the well.

That material was supposed to form "a bridge against which we could pump" more heavyweight mud inside the blowout preventer. That part of the operation was completed early today and appeared to have been partially successful. BP would go back to pumping more mud later today, he said. If the mud works, BP would pour cement to seal the well. "Clearly I'm as anxious as everyone in America is to get this thing done," Hayward said.

As the world waited, President Barack Obama announced major new restrictions on drilling projects, and the head of the federal agency that regulates the industry resigned under pressure, becoming the highest-ranking political casualty of the crisis so far.

Obama is scheduled to attend a briefing today at the U.S. Coast Guard Station in Grand Isle, La., by Adm. Thad Allen, who is overseeing the response to the spill.

It would be his second visit to the region since the disaster began. At the White House on Thursday, Obama acknowledged that his administration could have done a better job dealing with the spill and that it misjudged the industry's ability to handle a worst-case scenario.

"I take responsibility. It is my job to make sure that everything is done to shut this down," Obama said at a news conference, where he announced a series of new restrictions on oil drilling projects.