BP begins placing cap over blown-out well in Gulf of Mexico

Live video footage provided by the London-based energy giant showed the cap over the oil leaking from a severed oil pipe Tuesday night.

Earlier in the day, BP CEO Tony Hayward announced that the company had crossed a "milestone" by slicing off the remains of the well's damaged riser pipe with giant shears.

That cleared the way for the cap to be lowered down to the well, located about a mile below the surface of the Gulf.

Hayward said the operation would need several more hours to complete.

BP officials also said it was not immediately known if the cap is successful or how much oil it can siphon to a tanker on the Gulf's surface.

BP turned to the giant shears after a diamond-tipped wire saw got stuck in the pipe halfway through the job, another setback in the company's six-week battle against the spill triggered by the explosion of BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig late April.

This latest attempt is also considered risky because cutting off a section of the 20-inch-wide riser could remove kinks in the pipe and temporarily increase the flow of oil by as much as 20 percent.

This effort, like BP's previous attempts such as the steel dome and the "top kill", is also untested at such depth of the ocean, but officials said they were more optimistic this time.

Once the cap is in place, a smaller pipe will begin siphoning oil up to the surface, Kazinform cites Xinhua. See www.xinhuanet.com for full version.