Today, BP was hoping to solve the problem of the Deepwater Horizon oil leak that has been spilling thousands of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico daily since April. They planned to plug (top kill) the gusher with mud and cement. The BP CEO told the BBC not three hours ago that it would take 24 hours for the deep-sea robots to complete the job and 24 hours to know whether it had worked. But, news just in from BBC suggests early success in stopping the flow of oil and gas from the well.

The BP website and twitter feed have not yet been updated to reflect this news, they’re probably too busy shovelling Shinola in their global offices.

Related articles on the top kill

• Some initial signs of ‘top kill’ progress (washingtonmonthly.com)
• BP ‘stops leaking Gulf oil well’ (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Coast Guard: ‘Top Kill’ has stopped oil flow, efforts to permanently seal well proceeding (dailykos.com)
• BP’s ‘top kill’ method stops flow of oil in Gulf of Mexico (telegraph.co.uk)
• The Gulf Oil Spill and the Future of Offshore Energy (usnews.com)
• What the Gulf Oil Spill Will Likely Cost BP: An Update (dailyfinance.com)
• BP Effort To Plug Oil Well ‘Is Successful’ (news.sky.com)
• BP Is Attempting the Top Kill (slog.thestranger.com)
• Gulf of Mexico oil spill: clean-up boats recalled after crews suffer health problems (telegraph.co.uk)