Oil plumes form below slick as BP battles on

OIL from a blown-out well is forming huge underwater plumes as much as 16km long below the visible slick in the Gulf of Mexico, scientists said as BP wrestled for a third day with its latest contraption for slowing the nearly month-old gusher.

BP, the largest oil and gas producer in the US, has been unable to thread a tube into the leak to siphon the crude to a tanker, its third approach to stopping or reducing the spill on the ocean floor. Engineers remotely steering robot submersibles were trying again yesterday to fit the tube into a breach over a kilometre below the surface, BP said.

Oil has been spewing since the rig Deepwater Horizon exploded on April 20, killing 11 people and sinking two days later.