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The US coast guard has said it is considering using controlled fires to burn off oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico after an offshore drilling rig exploded and sunk last week.
Rear-Admiral Mary Landry said pools of oil could be trapped in containment booms and set on fire as early as Wednesday.
The technique has had success in the past, but would lead to some air pollution.
A fleet of around 50 vessels trying to mop up the spreading oil slick off the southern US coast has so far been impeded by high seas and strong winds.
Four remote-controlled robotic submarines deployed to the leak site on Monday to try to seal off the undersea oil well have also yet to yield results.
An explosion at the Deepwater Horizon oil rig last Tuesday left 11 workers dead and led to its sinking two days later.
Around 160,000 liters of oil, meanwhile, have poured into the sea from the well, creating a massive oil slick that could cause an environmental disaster along the US Gulf coast, threatening wildlife as well as economically important fishing grounds and oyster beds.
"If we don't secure this well, yes, this could be one of the most significant oil spills in US history," Landry said.
Relief drilling
The oil slick is now only 32km away from the Louisiana coastline, with experts predicting it could reach the small town of Venice by Friday.
British energy company BP, which had contracted the sunken oil rig, said it plans to drill a relief well as part of a $100m effort to take pressure off the source of the leak.
Drilling is due to begin on Thursday, although BP says it could take up to three months to complete.
But if crews controlling the robotic submersibles fail to activate a shutoff device, called a "blowout preventer", at the head of the well before then, up to 16 million liters of oil could empty into the Gulf of Mexico.
As an emergency back-p, BP engineers are also working to construct a giant dome to place over the leaking well to contain it. Collected oil could then be pumped out of the structure.
Prentice Danner, a spokesman for the US coast guard, said that option will take between two to four weeks, and is so far an untested one.
"This is the first time this has ever been done. This idea didn't exist until now. It has never been fabricated before," Danner said.
Exact dimensions of the dome were still being worked out, but officials said it would be similar to a cofferdam - a welded steel containment structures currently used in oil rig construction.
Joint investigation
The US departments of interior and homeland security have said they will launch a joint investigation into the oil-right explosion.
The inquiry will have subpoena power as well as the ability to call witnesses and hold public hearings.
Transocean Ltd, the rig owner, has said the explosion appeared to be a blowout, in which natural gas or oil forces its way up a well pipe and smashes the equipment.
The oil spill has the potential to be the worst of its kind in the US since the 1989 Exxon Valdez tanker disaster, although it is not anywhere near the same scale yet.
That spill, considered one of the worst-ever manmade disasters, poured around 41 million liters of crude into Alaska's Prince William Sound, devastating hundreds of kilometers of once pristine coastline.
PHOTO CAPTION
A worker looks over an oil boom as it collects oil from a leaking pipeline that resulted from last week's explosion and collapse of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico near the coast of Louisiana Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Al-Jazeera
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