BP: May Deploy Equipment For "Top Kill" Of Oil Leak Sunday

BP PLC (BP, BP.LN) could deploy equipment Sunday or early next week in order to start the procedure known as a "top kill" to stem the flow of oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico.

The procedure involves shooting heavy drilling fluids into the well, followed by a cement to seal it.

"The earliest we think we will be able to deploy that is Sunday, or it could slip into early next week," BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said in a teleconference. The timeframe isn't precise because the procedure has to be done at more than 5,000 feet below water, he said.

Suttles also said the company was siphoning 3,000 barrels of oil a day and 14 million cubic feet a day of natural gas from the leak through a mile-long tube it inserted earlier over the weekend into a shattered oil pipe on the ocean floor. On Tuesday, BP said it was collecting an estimated 2,000 barrels of oil a day from the leak.

The well is estimated to be spewing at least 5,000 barrels of oil a day into the Gulf. The spill resulted from the April 20 explosion and sinking, two days later, of Transocean Ltd.'s (RIG) Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, which was finishing a well for BP. Eleven members of the crew were killed by the blast, and the spill threatens the shore of several Gulf Coast states.

-By Isabel Ordonez, Dow Jones Newswires; 713-547-9207; isabel.ordonez@dowjones.com

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