By Gary Taylor, with Gary Gentile in Washington

May 18 - With one-fifth of the runaway Macondo exploration well's Gulf of Mexico leakage diverted into a siphoning tube, BP moved ahead May 17 with work on its next step for stopping the Macondo leak this week by clogging its malfunctioning blowout preventer.

During his daily press briefing, BP executive Doug Suttles said he would be pleased if the siphoning device inserted the day before can increase its flow to 2,000 b/d, or nearly half of the 5,000 b/d BP has estimated as the total flow from the well.

After two unsuccessful attempts at installation May 15, the mile-long tube began working on the third try, siphoning part of the leak up to the surface and into a drillship for storage.

"We're getting a little over 1,000 b/d and will try to increase the rate while we open the choke," said Suttles, adding: "This doesn't stop the flow."

He said, "Our next effort is late this week or early in the weekend."

That effort focuses on two methods for creating a clog by injecting either heavy drilling fluids and cement in a method dubbed "top kill" or the application of what BP calls a "junk shot" using golf balls, tire shards and other items of various sizes or shapes.

"We think top kill is the most likely one to deploy," Suttles said.

Even if this next step successfully stems the flow of all crude from the leaking wellhead 4,993 feet below the surface, however, Suttles emphasized that BP would continue with completion of a relief well by August to permanently plug and abandon the original Macondo exploration well.

"We have no intention of producing this well," Suttles said.

Meanwhile, analysts at Tudor Pickering Holt (TPH) were warning that new information emerging about the cause of the April 20 Macondo blowout could raise concerns about an extension of the US government's moratorium on new offshore drilling permits scheduled to expire on May 28.

That new information included release of a "60 Minutes" investigative report May 16 on CBS-TV that TPH said "skewered" BP for "questionable decision making as they rushed to finish the well."

The April 20 blowout at Macondo destroyed Transocean's semisubmersible Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and created the spill that threatens the US Gulf Coast from Florida to Louisiana while forcing suspension of fishing in part of the Gulf.

"We don't think an offshore drilling and production moratorium is reasonable or practical," the TPH team concluded.

But they also called it "pretty clear that BP and the entire industry is going to be under a microscope and the cost or timing of offshore oil production is going up."

In their report, the TPH analysts cite the current moratorium on new permits until May 28 and ask: "How long will the pause button remain on?...might stretch for a while."

The Sunday night TV report featured a lengthy interview with Transocean electronics technician Michael Williams, who was working aboard the Deepwater Horizon on the Macondo project and barely escaped with his life after jumping the more than 90 feet into the water when the rig caught fire.

Among the new information cited in that interview, TPH said Williams disclosed that BP "was pushing to finish quickly" on a well that had extended to six weeks from an estimated 21 days.

Williams also said the well at one point had to be sidetracked due to problems, with TPH noting that this "new information explains why the well was taking a long time."

With a well like this one costing $1 million/day to drill, TPH analysts said the new information leads them to conclude: "We think most of the BP decisions here were to help the well go faster."

TPH also said the program reflected new light on a debate cited in last week's congressional hearings between BP and Transocean about the best method to close the well on the day of the blowout.

Williams said BP overruled Transocean's plan to use drilling mud to close the well, opting instead to replace the mud with seawater.

"By taking out the mud, it would allow BP to re-enter the well more easily or quicker on their return," the TPH report noted, citing BP's apparent desire to re-enter with production plans later on a faster basis.

"We enter this week feeling incrementally worse about BP and Transocean," the TPH team concluded, following an analysis last week about the role of "inadequate" cement work in the well.

In Washington, DC, congressional investigators continued to review both the incident and the response, hearing from Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano that Gulf shipping lanes have not yet been affected.

Napolitano also said no ships have had to be scrubbed of oil after passing through the slick produced by the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

Speaking before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, she said BP has already paid $9.9 million to people who have claims related to the spill. About 16,000 claims have been filed.

"It has not yet denied a claim," she said.

The hearing focused on response plans rather than identifying the cause of the explosion and leak.

Committee Chairman Joseph Lieberman, Independent-Connecticut, questioned the adequacy of response plans filed by BP with the Minerals Management Service.

Napolitano acknowledged the plans never anticipated the scope of the current situation.

"Before the blowout, it is clear there was an assumption that a blowout preventer would never fail," Napolitano said.

Lieberman questioned a federal requirement giving oil companies the option of filing either a regional response plan or specific response plans for individual wells.

He also questioned the wisdom of relying on a response plan that relies almost entirely on a blowout preventer from preventing a wider disaster.

Lieberman also questioned the details of the plan, which claim BP would be able to use surface booms, skimming vessels and dispersants to handle a spill as large as 250,000 b/d -- many times the current estimate of 5,000 b/d.

Framing the debate ahead, Lieberman posed a rhetorical inquiry: "And perhaps most important in the approved BP response plans, there appears to be total reliance on the blowout preventer, and no plans filed for what to do to control and stop a spill if a blowout preventer fails in deepwater, as it did in the current case. Why not?"

He said: "I hold the federal government responsible for continuing to issue permits for deepwater drilling without demanding that the companies be prepared to deal with the consequences of an explosion."

Elsewhere, members of the US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works asked US Attorney General Eric Holder to open an investigation into potential violations of civil and criminal laws related to the incident.