A senior BP executive on Saturday said the company had failed to stop the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico with its "top kill" method.

BP Chief Operation Officer Doug Suttles said the company had determined that the operation of pumping heavy drilling mud into the crippled well had failed.

The company had been studying the performance of the operation for three days, according to the www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com website which added that the BP COO would be joined by U.S. Coast Guard Read Admiral Mary Landry and MMS Regional Supervisor for Field Operations Mike Saucier at a Saturday briefing to update the media on the ongoing leak-stopping operations.

"We have not been able to stop the flow," said Suttles, "We have made the decision to move onto the next option."

BP has so far tried with dropping a gigantic box with a siphon hose connected to it.

BP is now considering sending a submarine robot to cap the damaged pipe with a containment valve. The new method is to take four days to complete.

The oil leak and spill has become the worst in the U.S. history by having dumped around 68 million and 151 million liters of oil into the Gulf, according to U.S. government estimates.