GALLIANO, Louisiana (Reuters) - BP said on Tuesday it was exploring a new way to siphon oil from a massive leak in the Gulf of Mexico while it prepares for another attempt this week to seal a blown-out well.
Washington piled pressure on BP on Monday to clean up the "massive environmental mess" and a top official said fines would be imposed on the energy giant for the spreading oil spill.
The company said it was doing all it could to try to stop the underwater well spewing hundreds of thousands of gallons (liters) of oil into the Gulf every day
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BP Plc said it would make another attempt to plug the leak on Wednesday, but gave it only a 60 to 70 percent chance of success. The company plans to inject heavy fluids and then cement into the seabed well to block oil flow in a so-called "top kill" operation.
Looking beyond that maneuver, the company said on Tuesday it was exploring a new way to siphon oil from the well. It plans to remove a damaged part from the well and put in place a tube to capture the oil and gas in what it called the "LMRP cap containment option."
BP, which already has one siphon tube in place on a pipe leading from the sunken rig, said it would be ready to try to fit the new tube by the end of the month.
BP executives have warned there is no certainty the containment efforts will succeed, because they have never been attempted at the depths -- a mile down -- where the well is located.
If short-term efforts fail
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Shares in BP fell to a fresh 10-month low and were down 4.7 percent in London on Tuesday, only slightly worse than a 3.4 percent slide for European energy stocks as a whole.
"It's part of BP's ongoing efforts to contain the situation," London analyst Alan Sinclair of Seymour Pierce said of the new tube option
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The company has lost about 25 percent of its market value -- almost $50 billion -- since the spill began.
POLITICAL HOT POTATO
BP said its internal investigation team had begun sharing its review of the causes of the oil spill with the U.S. government.
Relatives of the 11 workers who died in the April 20 explosion that sank the Deepwater Horizon rig will hold a private service in Jackson
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Three of President Barack Obama's Cabinet secretaries visited the Gulf coast on Monday to survey what could eclipse the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill off Alaska as the worst U.S. oil spill.
Heavy oil is washing into fragile marshlands and wildlife refuges in Louisiana and threatening the livelihoods of Gulf Coast residents.
More than 300 seabirds have been found dead and the oil is now invading vulnerable marshes and endangering sea turtles, dolphins and whales.
U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has said the government could push BP aside and federalize the cleanup effort if it did not do enough to stop the leak.
But Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen
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"To push BP out of the way would raise the question of 'replace them with what?'" Allen said at a White House news conference.
BP was "exhausting every technical means possible" to meet its legal responsibility to contain the oil, he said.
The oil spill is a political hot potato for the Obama administration before a November election that is widely expected to erode Democrats' control of the U.S. Congress. Analysts say voters may punish Democrats regardless of who is ultimately deemed responsible for the mess.
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who has been critical of the federal government's response, again called for more equipment, especially booms, to help stop the oil from making landfall. He said 70 miles of his state's coastline had been affected by the oil spill.
A report on the disaster that will influence whether the Interior Department resumes issuing offshore drilling permits will be sent to Obama on Thursday, the White House said.
BP said the spill had cost it $760 million so far. It pledged up to $500 million toward studying its impact.