Houston, Texas (CNN) -- A top Obama administration official said Wednesday the oil spill crisis in the Gulf of Mexico is "turning a corner," with the "vast majority" of the oil now gone and the procedure to permanently seal BP's crippled well apparently working.
"We definitely are making progress. The oil hasn't been leaking for some time," Carol Browner, director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy, told CNN's "American Morning." "The static kill is going well, but ultimately, it's the relief wells we ordered drilled that will be the 'final kill-kill.' Probably, in the next 10 to 14 days that will be done, but (it was) an important step last night".
"Our scientists and external scientists believe that the vast majority of the oil has now been contained. It's been skimmed. Mother Nature has done its part. It's evaporated. And so, I think we're turning a corner here," Browner added.
She credited the progress to "the fact that we launched the largest response in the history of our country. We had nearly 7,000 vessels, more than 40,000 people, working to clean this up: to capture it, to skim it, to burn it. And that's why the vast majority of the oil is gone. In terms of what's left, it will continue to weather in the ocean. If it comes ashore, obviously it can be cleaned up -- the tar balls, the sheens. But certainly, we're seeing far less oil than we were seeing," Browner explained.
The well-killing procedure, which began Tuesday afternoon, involves pumping heavy drilling mud down from above to push oil back into the well reservoir.
"The well pressure is now being controlled by the hydrostatic pressure of the drilling mud, the desired outcome of the static kill procedure," a BP statement said. "The pumping of heavy drilling mud was stopped after about eight hours... The well is now being monitored, per the procedure, to ensure the well remains static". CNN
