BP's handle on Gulf Oil spill pivots on "top kill"

If the "top kill" procedure joins the list of BP failures to plug the leak, U.S. President Barack Obama's government may have no choice but to take central charge of the response to what is considered the worst oil spill in U.S. history.
Obama has told aides in recent days to "plug the damn hole" and he will head to the Louisiana Gulf coast on Friday for the second time since the April 20 rig blast that killed 11 and unleashed the oil.
Despite frustration with BP -- which admitted that it may have made a "fundamental mistake" in working on the rig hours before the explosion -- the government relies almost exclusively on the energy titan's deepwater technology.
Equipped with underwater robots, BP engineers plan on Wednesday to inject heavy drilling fluids into the mile- deep well, a complex maneuver that has never been attempted at such depths.

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