Energy company BP Sunday reported that it had been successful in siphoning off some amounts of oil and gas from the nearly four-week-old gushing leak on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico, DPA reported.
The report marked the first successful attempt to capture the crude oil at its source - a ruptured wellhead - to prevent it from polluting the Gulf.
The oil and gas was fed up to the Discoverer Enterprise drill ship 1.6 kilometres above, on the ocean surface, where the "natural gas was burned through a flare system on board the ship," BP and the US Coast Guard said in an e-mailed statement.
After the success, there were some problems. The smaller tube which has been inserted inside the leaking tube became "dislodged."
"While this is disappointing, it is not unexpected given the challenging operating environment," the officials said.
But the tube had been successfully reinserted again.
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