Company's statement it may not give up all claims on Macondo well escalates ongoing struggle with White House

A struggle between BP and the Obama administration over the future of the cemented well in the Gulf of Mexico erupted in public today when the oil company suggested it may drill in the same reservoir again.

In a briefing with reporters meant to symbolise BP's return to business-as-usual in the Gulf, the chief operating officer, Doug Suttles, said the company may not give up all claims on the Macondo well, which leaked five million barrels of oil into the Gulf.

"There's lots of oil and gas here," Suttles said. "We're going to have to think about what to do with that at some point."

BP's former chief executive, Tony Hayward, told Congress in June that there were 50 million recoverable barrels of oil in the reservoir.

The company faces tens of billions of dollars of damages from the spill.

Soon after Suttles's remarks, Thad Allen, the man appointed by the Obama administration to lead the federal response to the disaster, said he knew of no plans to return to the well. Such a decision would be made by well licensing authorities, Allen said. "It had not been raised to my level at this point," he said.

The exchange marks an escalation of a subtler struggle all week, in which BP officials appeared far less convinced than Obama administration officials of the need to pump cement into the bottom of the Macondo from a relief well.

"We want to end up with cement in the bottom of the hole," Kent Wells, a senior vice-president, told a briefing on Tuesday. "Whether that comes from the top or whether it comes from the relief well, those will be decisions made along the way."

Allen, however, insisted the relief well should be cemented. "I don't think we can see this as the end all and be all until we get the relief wells done," he said.

Officially, BP remains committed to pouring mud and cement into the Macondo from two relief wells, which it has been drilling for the last three months. But BP officials recently described the relief well process as "confirmation" of the killing of the runaway well rather than a vital step.

One of the wells is now about four feet away from the Macondo. Once the cement seal hardens, BP crews are scheduled to resume work intercepting the well. But the two relief wells could also conceivably offer a way for BP or another oil company to pump the remaining oil from the reservoir, and sell it.

In another sign that BP feels confident one chapter of the oil spill is over, Suttles announced today he would return to his regular role in Houston.

He will be replaced by Mike Utsler, who has been running the oil company's command post in Houma, Louisiana.

More than 1,100 miles away from the Gulf of Mexico, meanwhile, a major oil company was today fighting to contain the damage from a ruptured pipe.

Enbridge Energy Partners said it hopes to cut out the damaged section of a pipeline that spewed about a million gallons of heavy crude oil into a rural Michigan creek late last month.

The spill, the worst seen in the industrial heartland of the midwest, forced dozens of families to flee their homes and raised fears about air and water safety.