BP Reaches Key 'Milestone' in Halting Gulf Oil Leak

Oil company BP says it has cut a ruptured pipe from the leaking Gulf of Mexico oil well, a key step in the latest effort to cap the well.
BP chief Tony Hayward hailed it as an "important milestone" and said BP could know within the next 12 to 24 hours if the capping effort would succeed, reports BBC News.

Speaking in Houston, Hayward described the pipe-cutting procedure as "simply the beginning."

"Our task is to contain the oil, ultimately to eliminate the leaking well, and most importantly, to clean up all of the oil, defend the shoreline and restore the shoreline where oil does come ashore such that we return it to its original state," said he.
For now, undersea robots are preparing the well-head to receive the cap.

President Barack Obama is to visit the gulf on Friday, his third trip there since the leak began six weeks ago.

The White House has been under increasing pressure to show the administration is in control of the response and clean-up efforts.

The federal government will send a $69m bill to BP Plc on Thursday for expenditure incurred from its response to the spill, the White House said.

Meanwhile, a detailed computer modelling study indicated that oil from the spill might extend along thousands of miles of the Atlantic coast and open ocean as early as this summer.

The National Center for Atmospheric Research said once oil entered the "Loop Current", part of the Gulf Stream which sweeps around the Florida panhandle, it would be only weeks before it reached Florida's Atlantic shores.