Oil from spill in Gulf of Mexico creeps ashore in Louisiana

Oil from a massive spill in the Gulf of Mexico sloshed ashore on a chain of islands off the Louisiana coast on Thursday as the Obama administration accused BP Plc and its partners of making "very major mistakes" in the ill-fated drilling operation.      
 

BP engineers were expected to start lowering a huge metal chamber over the ruptured seabed well, which has been gushing oil at 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons795,000 litres) a day since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded two weeks ago off the Louisiana Coast, killing 11 workers.                                           
 

The 98-ton structure is designed to cover the leaks and allow the oil to be pumped into a ship, a method that has never been tried at a water depth of nearly one mile (1.6 km).                                           

BP chief operating officer Doug Suttles said the dome could be placed over the leak site late on Thursday.                                           
 

The company is drilling a relief well that could take two or three months to complete, making the containment dome the centerpiece of the short-term fight against the slick.                 

The federal government heaped more criticism on the company, and said it would make sure it lived up to its responsibility to limit the damage from what could be the largest oil spill in US history.                                            
 

After a lengthy meeting with BP executives in Houston, US interior secretary Ken Salazar said the company and its partners made "some very major mistakes," although he declined to say whether he meant before or after the explosion.                                           

"Its life is very much on the line here," Salazar told reporters. "Are they doing everything that they can possibly do? I hope that they are. I want to make sure that is in fact happening."