BP captures over 14,000 barrels of oil in 24 hours

WASHINGTON: BP engineers seeking to contain the worst oil spill in US history captured more than 14,800 barrels of crude from a blown-out well in the past 24 hours, the top US disaster official said Tuesday.

"Regarding the containment operations with the cap, in the last 24-hour period from midnight last night to midnight this night, we were able to recover 14,842 barrels," Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen told a press briefing.

"This has climbed steadily from the first day which you remember we've gone from about 6,000 barrels up to almost 15,000.

"We continue to optimize production, make sure we can take as much oil out of that stream as we can right now."

The oil has been spewing into the Gulf of Mexico since an April 20 explosion on the BP-operated Deepwater Horizon well, just off the Louisiana coast.

BP last week lowered a containment cap over the well, after sawing off the fractured riser pipe, and has steadily increased the amount of oil being siphoned off to a containment ship on the surface.