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Energy giant BP said on Monday it was capturing about a fifth of the oil leaking from its ruptured Gulf of Mexico well, but the London-based company faced fresh questions about its industry safety record.BP shares initially climbed on news that a "quick fix" -- a mile(1.6 km)-long siphon tube deployed by undersea robots down to the leaking well-- had made some progress in partly reducing the flow of oil and gas.More efforts to stem the spill were under way, and there is another smaller leak besides the one now being targeted.The company's stock initially rose more than 2 percent in London, but later fell back, shedding those gainsBP executives still faced tough questions from the U.S. government and public over the huge spill threatening economic and environmental calamity to the U.S. Gulf Coast. They can expect more intense grilling by lawmakers and investigators after tough questioning last week about safety practices.A study released on Monday by the Center for Public Integrity showed two BP-owned U.S. refineries accounted for 97 percent of all flagrant safety violations found in the refining industry by government inspectors over the past three years."The only thing you can conclude is that BP has a serious, systemic safety problem in their company," said Jordan Barab, deputy assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health, quoted in a statement from the nonprofit group.BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said engineers were working intensely to try to control the gushing well, which some scientists say also has created huge underwater "plumes of oil," besides a massive, shifting surface slick."We're throwing absolutely everything at this," Suttles told CNN.The spill threatens to eclipse the 1989 Exxon Valdez accident off Alaska as the worst U.S. ecological disaster."PEOPLE ARE FREAKING OUT"While the U.S. Gulf Coast has so far been spared a massive landfall of heavy oil, small amounts of oil debris, in the form of surface sheen and tar balls, have come ashore in outlying parts of the coastline of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama."People are freaking out. They see the news and think oil is everywhere, but it is not," said Michael Dorie, co-owner of Wild Native and Five Rivers Delta Safaris, which takes people out in Alabama's Mobile Tensaw Delta on eco-tours"If it all dries up and disappears, well the highlight of my tours is wildlife and pretty flowers. Take that away and my tour becomes just a boat ride. If people see oil slicked birds, how many more will not come?" he added.Detailing the undersea efforts, BP's Suttles said a suction tube had been inserted into a well riser pipe that fell to the ocean floor after last month's explosion and sinking of a rig drilling the BP-owned well. The riser pipe has been gushing oil from the blown-out well.The inserted suction tube was siphoning off 1,000 barrels per day, about one fifth of the 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons/795,000 liters) BP estimated to be leaking per day. Other estimates are much higher."This is just containing the flow. Later this week, hopefully before the end of the week, we'll make our next attempt to actually fully stop the flow," Suttles told NBC.BP said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it would take time to try to increase the amount of oil and gas being siphoned off to a surface ship."This remains a new technology and both its continued operation and its effectiveness in capturing the oil and gas remains uncertain. Other containment options continue to be progressed," it added.The next move would involve a so-called "top kill" option in which engineers using the undersea robots would try to shoot heavy "mud," a mixture of synthetic materials, into the well to form a barrier to prevent oil and gas from escaping.This could be combined with a so-called "junk shot" that would inject a variety of materials, such as golf balls and pieces of rubber tire, into the ruptured well's failed "blowout preventer" safety device to seal off oil flow."LOOP CURRENT" COULD CARRY OILThe Obama administration greeted the news cautiously, saying the tube insertion was "not a solution to the problem."Investors have already knocked around $30 billion off BP's value over the spill, which followed the April 20 explosion in which eleven workers were killed. Survivors' accounts to media raised questions about whether safety controls were observed.In comments to U.S. media over the weekend, scientists said they had found huge underwater "plumes of oil" several miles (kilometers) long in the Gulf of Mexico, suggesting much wider impact to the marine habitat than previously thought.There are fears that as the slick, which is broken into segments, spreads through the action of winds and current, it could run into the so-called "Loop Current" that could take it down to the Florida Keys and even up the U.S. East Coast.The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said that with light winds forecast from the south and the west in coming days, "ocean models indicate that any tar balls leading the southern edge of the plume could begin moving more to the south west and potentially into the Loop Current.""The worst case would be if a hurricane comes through, that is my biggest fear," Alabama boat captain Dorie said.The U.S. Senate's Homeland Security Committee will conduct a hearing on the oil spill on Monday.The Center for Public Integrity study said BP had been under intense scrutiny by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration since its refinery in Texas City, Texas, exploded in March 2005, killing 15 workers.Refinery inspection data obtained by the Center under the Freedom of Information Act for OSHA's nationwide program and for the parallel Texas City inspection show BP received a total of 862 citations between 2007 and 2010 for alleged violations at its refineries in Texas City and Toledo, Ohio.Virtually all were for alleged violations of OSHA's process safety management standard, rule governing everything from storage of flammable liquids to emergency shutdown systems.PUBLIC REBUKEPresident Barack Obama, who has publicly rebuked BP and its partners in the ruptured well for a "ridiculous spectacle" of trading blame for the accident, is keeping heavy pressure on the company to foot the entire bill for the cleanup and pay out claims of economic damages to regional fishing and tourism."We're taking responsibility for the spill not just in words, we've set up claim centers across the Gulf coast," BP Managing Director Robert Dudley said on ABC's "Good Morning America" program. "We will pay all legitimate claims."On the CBS news show "60 Minutes" on Sunday, rig survivor Mike Williams described some of the disturbing incidents that proceeded the accident, including another crewman's discovery of chunks of rubber in the drilling fluid."I recall asking the supervisor if this was out of the ordinary. And he says, 'Oh, it's, it's no big deal.' And I thought, 'How can it be not a big deal? There's chunks of our seal now missing,'" he said.He also said BP was applying pressure to get the drilling operation done faster.(Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria in Washington, Pascal Fletcher in Miami, Verna Gates in Mobile, Alabama and Brian Gorman in London; Writing by Pascal Fletcher; Editing by Doina Chiacu)
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