BP plans to replace containment cap in July

NEW ORLEANS (AP):

As officials reported a gradual increase in the amount of oil being captured from the spewing wellhead at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, BP said yesterday that it plans next month to replace the cap collecting the crude with a slightly bigger device.

The newer cap will "provide a better, tighter fit" than the current one collecting roughly one-third to three-fourths of the oil gushing daily from the sea floor, company spokesman Robert Wine told The Associated Press. But it will also allow the oil now being collected to again spew out into the Gulf during the changeover.

The oil began gushing after a BP PLC oil rig explosion April 20 and recently increased in volume after officials sheared off the top of the damaged outflow pipe as part of the latest containment effort. BP believes the bigger cap will fit over more of the pipe than the current cap.

The current device is collecting about 466,200 gallons (1.7 million litres) of oil per day, Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, the government's point man for the oil spill response, said earlier yesterday at the White House. He also elaborated on comments made over the weekend that the spill clean-up would last into the fall, acknow-ledging the full process would take much longer.

"Dealing with the oil spill on the surface will take a couple of months," he said yesterday, but the process of getting oil out of marshlands and other habitats "will be years".