Big Day for Zeus

Gulf oil explosion cleanup ship is now on fire

A drill ship resumed siphoning off oil gushing from a blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday after a bolt of lightning struck the vessel and ignited a fire that halted containment efforts, the company said.

BP PLC spokesman Bill Salvin told The Associated Press that the drill ship called the Discoverer Enterprise resumed processing oil Tuesday afternoon, about five hours after the fire caused an emergency shutdown. Engineers on the ship have been siphoning about 630,000 gallons of oil a day through a cap on top of the well.

He said there was no damage reported to the containment cap, and the Coast Guard approved BP restarting the system.

"If we believed it was damaged, we would not have restarted the operation," Salvin said.

Salvin was unsure how long the fire lasted but said it was apparently small and confined to the top of the ship's derrick.

BP is now failing at failing