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BP's containment cap is capturing about half the oil shooting from a ruptured Gulf of Mexico well, but U.S. Admiral Thad Allen said on Sunday the coast will be under siege from the massive spill for many more months.BP said on Sunday its latest effort had captured 10,500 barrels of oil (439,950 gallons/1.67 million litres) in 24 hours and a second containment system should enable it to soon contain the vast majority of oil spewing from the leak about 1 mile (1.6 km) under the ocean's surface.The progress came as the company's Chief Executive Tony Hayward said he has no plans to quit over his handling of the environmental disaster marked by a string of failures since the April 20 rig explosion that triggered the oil spill.Allen, the Coast Guard admiral heading up the federal oil spill relief efforts, estimated the maximum collection rate possible from the small containment device at about 15,000 barrels per day. The well is estimated to be leaking 12,000 to 19,000 barrels a day.Despite the progress, Allen told CBS's "Face the Nation" program, "This will only end when we intercept the wellbore, pump mud down it to overcome the pressure of the oil coming up from the reservoir and put a cement plug in....""This will be well into the fall," he said. "This is a siege across the entire Gulf. This spill is holding everybody hostage, not only economically but physically, and it has to be attacked on all fronts."GRAPHIC: http://link.reuters.com/vag38kPressure has mounted on London-based BP to stop the leak from the ruined seabed well and bear the full financial cost of the cleanup and damage caused to Gulf coast fisheries, wildlife and tourism.Hayward became a lightning rod for Americans' anger with BP when he told struggling Gulf Coast residents last month, "I would like my life back," a remark widely seen as insensitive."It hasn't crossed my mind," Hayward when asked by The Sunday Telegraph if he might resign because of the spill. "It's clearly crossed other people's minds but not mine."Hayward told BBC television he had the full support of BP's board and the company's balance sheet was strong, despite the plunge in the company's market value as a result of the disaster."BP is ... generating a lot of cash. It will generate $30 to $35 billion of free cash flow this year ... We have the financial strength to see through this," he told the BBC."We have a further containment system to implement in the course of this coming week which will be in place by next weekend," Hayward told the BBC. "When these two are in place we ... hope to be containing the vast majority of the oil."Admiral Allen told CNN he wants more. "I don't think anybody should be pleased as long as there's oil in the water." And he told ABC's "This Week" that the number of slicks in the water was making the cleanup difficult."One of the problems with this entire spill is it's not a monolithic, huge spill," he said. "It's disaggregated itself into hundreds, maybe thousands of smaller pieces of oil."DEFENSIVE AND DISTRACTEDThe Obama administration has delayed plans to increase offshore drilling as a result of the spill. The crisis has put President Barack Obama on the defensive and distracted his team from their domestic agenda -- a new energy policy, reform of Wall Street and bolstering a struggling American economy.The focus on America's biggest environmental disaster comes ahead of November's mid-term congressional elections in which the Democrats are expected to struggle to keep their majorities in the House of Representatives and Senate.Some Republicans questioned Obama's leadership."No one has really known who's in charge. Is it the president of the United States? Is it the CEO of British Petroleum? Who is it? Is it Admiral Allen," Senator John Cornyn said on ABC. "We need the president to step up and assert himself."Oil began leaking from the well after the rig explosion that killed 11 workers. BP faces a criminal investigation, lawsuits, dwindling investor confidence and questions about its credit-worthiness. Its shares have lost about one-third of their value since the crisis began.BP said it has spent $1 billion on the spill and vowed to pay all legitimate claims of those harmed by the disaster.After contaminating wetland wildlife refuges in Louisiana and barrier islands in Mississippi and Alabama, the black tide of crude oil has taken aim at some of the famous white beaches of Florida, whose economy is heavily dependent on tourism.Florida Governor Charlie Crist told CNN the oil debris washing up on Panhandle beaches was relatively easy to clean up because it was landing on the famous sugar-white beaches instead of in marshes or estuaries, as in Louisiana."It's easier to clean up off the beaches as we're able to do this past weekend in Pensacola," he said. "We were disappointed that it came on the beach at all but then able to clean it up fairly rapidly."Fully one-third of the Gulf's federal waters, or 78,603 square miles (202,582 square km), remains closed to fishing, and the toll of dead and injured birds and marine animals, including sea turtles and dolphins, is climbing.Cleaning crews assembled shortly on Pensacola beach after sunrise on Sunday with few tell-tale signs off one of Florida's most famous beaches of a looming oil slick -- some sludge-coated bottles, an oil coated tire and scattered marine debris tarnished with weathered crude.Signs of landfall were first seen Friday, putting cleanup crews on high alert. While the the oil reaching land has been in small amounts, officials say a heavier slick looms behind.Concerned about the damage to tourism, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour said on "Fox News Sunday" that his state's beaches have only a few tar balls."The coast is clear, come on down," he said.(Additional reporting by Bruce Nichols in Houston, Tom Brown in Miami, Jeff Mason in Kenner, La., Kelli Dugan in Orange Beach, Alabama, Sarah Irwin in Buras, Louisiana, Jane Ross in Pensacola and Michael Roddy in London, and Philip Barbara in Washington; Writing by Mark Egan; Editing by Bill Trott and Jackie Frank)
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