Oil spill latest: update, top kill results

Almost a mile below the Gulf of Mexico, BP has been blasting mud and joining agents into the broken blowout preventer to stem the flow of oil and gas blasting its way into the Gulf of Mexico.

Yesterday, the US Coast Guard claimed the "Top Kill" was successful, declaring that the wellhead was stabilized. "They've been able to stabilize the wellhead, they're pumping mud down it. They've stopped the hydrocarbons from coming up," said Admiral Thad Allen of the US Coast Guard. Despite the hydro-carbons being stopped, to fully seal the well BP would need to pump cement into it; something that can only be done when the pressure is neutralized to zero.

Despite claims of successfully plugging the stricken well, BP halted proceedings last night when engineers saw that the drilling fluid they were injecting into the well, along with crude oil, was leaking from the blowout preventer. A technician from BP explained that drilling would need to be suspended until engineers had revised their plan of attack. As a result, the "Top Kill" method is still in doubt.

An anonymous technician from BP said they are "still quite optimistic [on plugging the well]", but warned: "It is not assured and it's not a done deal yet. All of this will require some time,"  - at least 24 more hours, BP says now.

Earlier this week, BP CEO Tony Hayward rated the success rate for the "Top Kill" effort at around 65 percent.

Obama suspends Arctic drilling

The oil spill has put the Obama government in a bind after they originally expressed their desire to increase offshore drilling to decrease America's reliance on foreign energy. However, since the Deepwater Horizon caught fire and sank, both Obama and Californian Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger have taken a u-turn on offshore drilling, both exclaiming that all their efforts were on stifling the leaking well, not on finding new, deeper offshore wells.

And yesterday, Reuters reported that the Obama administration was to announce the suspension of offshore oil drilling in the Arctic until 2011. Obama is also expected to announce tougher safety requirements; something that is essential to leave deeper, more difficult drilling with less room for catastrophe.

The Arctic decision will suspend plans by Shell Oil to drill exploratory wells off Alaska this summer.

"I am frustrated that this decision by the Obama administration to halt offshore development for a year will cause more delays and higher costs for domestic oil and gas production to meet the nation's energy needs," Democratic Senator Mark Begich said in a statement.

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