Washington: It would take several months to bring the environmentally disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico under control, US President Barack Obama acknowledged on Monday following a special cabinet meeting on the crisis.
"Even if we are successful in containing some or much of this oil, we are not going to get this problem completely solved until we actually have the relief well completed.
And that is going to take a couple more months," Obama said in his remarks after the Cabinet meeting.
He said already a lot of oil has been released, and more is bound to be released no matter how successful the ongoing containment effort is.
"We are still trying to get a better determination as to how much it's capturing. And we are pushing BP very hard to make sure that all the facilities are available, so that as the oil is being captured, its also being separated properly," Obama said.
The US President emphasised that it is important to continue to put every asset -- boom, skimmers, vessels, hiring local folks and local fishermen, equipping them with skimmers -- out there to make sure that they are minimising the amount of oil that is actually coming to shore.
Earlier at a White House news briefing, Thad Allen, the National Incident Commander, said in the last 24 hours the production of the Discoverer Enterprise over the well head produced 11,000 barrels of oil.
"They continue to increase. Trying to increase that production rate, ultimately close the venting valves and move to a greater capacity.
"BP anticipates moving another craft in that can actually handle additional production and the combination of these two -- the vessel is called a Q4000 -- combined will have a production capability of about 20,000 barrels a day," he said.
He said the attempt is to increase production and slowly close the vents.
"... and see how the containment cap is working and whether or not any oil is forced down by the pressure through the rubber seals, as we've talked about before," Allen said.
He said in the long run, British Petroleum is also looking at bringing larger production vessels in, create a more permanent connection that can be disconnected easily in case there is an hurricane or bad weather.
"We'll continue to optimise the production out of the well to contain it," he said.