Thad Allen

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Here on the open ocean, 12 miles from ground zero of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the gulf is hovering between life and death. The large strands of sargassum seaweed atop the ocean are normally noisy with birds and thick with crustaceans, small...

BP resumed work Friday on the drilling operation meant to spell the ultimate end of its notorious gulf well as it continued to scale back its massive cleanup operation. “We’re far from finished,” said Doug Suttles, the company’s outgoing cleanup.....

A complete sealing of the BP oil well is not likely to occur until sometime after Labor Day, the federal government’s spill response chief said Thursday. The delay is necessary because federal officials are requiring that BP engineers take new,......

The company that owned the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico is accusing BP of withholding what it describes as critical evidence needed to investigate the cause of worst maritime oil spill in history, according......

Engineers will conduct more tests on BP's troubled oil well before deciding how to proceed with a plan to kill it for good, a government officials said Wednesday. Thad Allen, the federal spill response chief, told reporters that crews planned......

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy by Mike Memoli A recent poll showed many Americans are uncertain of his faith, but President Obama said in an interview Sunday that he can't worry about dispelling......

BP engineers flushed crystalline gas and water formations, known as methane hydrates, out of a damaged blowout preventer atop their capped Gulf of Mexico oil well Monday, thus freeing blocked rams on the structure. The successful operation means that...

Engineers in the Gulf of Mexico have abandoned efforts to fish out pieces of drill pipe stuck in the damaged Macondo well and early next week will begin trying to remove the blowout preventer -- a crucial step in finally......

A new blowout preventer has been placed atop BP’s problem oil well, a move that should allow crews to drill into the well deep underground and kill it for good in about a week. The old blowout preventer — a......

The federal response to the nation's worst environmental disaster may have been slow, but not this response....

A relief well is “almost touching” BP’s damaged oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, meaning that officials could declare the source of the nation’s largest offshore oil spill killed by Sunday, a top government official said Wednesday. Crews working......