BP Pauses Top Kill for More Mud, Oil Still Flows

BP's top kill effort was suspended for much of Thursday "so crews could monitor their work and bring in more heavy drilling mud to shoot into the blown-out well 5,000 feet underwater."

BP insisted the top kill was progressing as planned, though the company acknowledged drilling mud was escaping from a broken pipe along with the leaking crude.

"The fact that we had a bunch of mud going up the riser isn't ideal but it's not necessarily indicative of a problem," said spokesman Tom Mueller.

As the system isn't closed, what is BP pumping into the line to maintain pressure? So far, there are no answers. BP's live feed is black.

The company admits that oil is still flowing out. Obama's Thad Allen appears less than forthright with his comments. NYT reported:

BP officials, who along with government officials created the impression early in the day that the strategy was working, disclosed later that they had stopped pumping the night before when engineers saw that too much of the drilling fluid was escaping along with the oil.

WSJ reported:

The company temporarily stopped the flow of hydrocarbons while it was pumping drilling mud at high pressure earlier this week, but pressure from the well pushed back out into the ocean a combination of oil, gas and drilling fluid when the pumping stopped.

Let's hope "top kill 2" works. Dylan Ratigan interviewed two oil men who remain skeptical.