New Orleans, Louisiana (CNN) -- BP plans to start replacing the cap on its ruptured underwater well Saturday with a better cover that could stop oil from gushing into the Gulf, a company spokesman said.
The company starts Saturday installing a larger, better-fitting seal than the one currently covering the well, BP spokesman Mark Proegler said.
If successful, the operation could halt the gushing that started April 20 after an explosion that killed 11 people on the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico. But any such fix would be temporary, he said. The permanent solution would still be completion of a relief well.
The head of the government's response team said Friday that things are likely to get worse before they improve, but a two-part effort to stop the gusher shows promise for this weekend.
Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said in a statement late Friday that he and Energy Secretary Steven Chu had approved BP's plan to install an oil-recovery vessel, the Helix Producer, at the same time that a new cap is placed over the well, "which will require temporary suspension of the current top-hat containment system".
During the seven to 10 days that it will take to switch the caps, the 15,000 barrels of oil that the Discoverer Enterprise ship has been collecting daily are expected to flow unimpeded into the water, he said.
Allen said he approved the plan in order to take advantage of favorable weather predicted for coming days and because, once the switch is complete, the resulting capacity to contain oil "will be far greater than the capabilities we have achieved using current systems".
Scientists have estimated 35,000 to 60,000 barrels of oil are spewing daily from BP's breached Macondo well. They have been basing their estimates on high-resolution video and data from acoustic devices used to measure density.
But Allen said that, once the long-term containment cap is in place, scientists will for the first time have the empirical data they need to determine the true flow rate.
"I would think once the capping device is on, we would get the most accurate flow rate to date," he said.
Switching the containment cap could increase the amount of oil collected each day to 60,000 to 80,000 barrels, Allen said. Under a new alignment, four vessels would participate in oil recovery, one more than the three currently involved.
In a separate advance, federal responders expressed optimism Friday about a new aerial weapon in their arsenal. A 178-foot U.S. Navy blimp, the MZ-3A, was flown from New Orleans to Mobile, Alabama, to be used to survey the disaster area as soon as Saturday, depending on the weather.
Officials said they hope surveys from the blimp will help them cut the time needed to get skimmers to the scene of oil slicks.
