There seems to be some confusion among the various news programs.
BP restarts 'top kill' effortBy the CNN Wire Staff
May 27, 2010 6:46 p.m. EDT
Venice, Louisiana (CNN) -- BP's much-anticipated effort to cap its undersea gusher in the Gulf of Mexico was temporarily suspended at midnight and was restarted in the last hour, a BP executive said.
The "top kill" procedure ended "just before midnight, when we stopped pumping operations," Doug Suttles, the company's chief operating officer, told reporters earlier. BP had been evaluating the results of the first round of pumping over the past 16 hours.
"Nothing has actually gone wrong or unanticipated," Suttles said. He said engineers have been monitoring the process for the past 24 hours, and determining adjustments to the mud-like fluid being injected into the line to counter to flow of oil.
The latest developments in the difficult top-kill procedure came as the Gulf Coast had been holding its breath all day Thursday over a spill that is now estimated at twice the size of the Exxon Valdez disaster.
BP's effort to suppress the oil spill by pumping heavy drilling fluid into the breach could take another 24 to 48 hours to complete, Bob Dudley, its managing director, reported earlier Thursday.
At that time, the "top kill" attempt had so far been successful, and the company planned to start pumping more fluid down a second line in hopes of clogging the underwater well, he said.
Enormous brown plumes of drilling "mud" billowed from the damaged well during the process, which Dudley called "a "titanic arm-wrestling match" a mile below the surface. Coast Guard Adm.
Thad Allen, who is leading the government's response to the oil spill, said the work "is moving along as everyone had hoped."http://us.cnn.com/2010/US/05/27/gulf.oil.spill/index.html 
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