Efforts to hook up another system to help control the BP oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico were progressing, U. S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said on Wednesday.

It has been reported that Allen, the national incident commander, made a trip to the recovery rigs in the gulf to "get a sense of how we're doing" getting the third rig, the Helix Producer, up and running.

Speaking from the Discovery Enterprise, Allen said, "The Helix Producer partially connected to a canister that sits below what they call the moon pool in the Helix Producer. They've connected their production lines from the top down to the canister. What remains to be done is to hook the flexible hose from the freestanding riser pipe to the bottom of that canister, and then the procedures required to test it and be ready to go to production will take approximately three days."

According to him, the work was to have been done by June 30 but rough seas churned by Hurricane Alex and a subsequent storm front moving through the region caused a delay. Swells were still 4-6 feet at the well site scene, he further added.

The vessel, once connected, should draw up to 53,000 barrels of oil a day.

Federal officials estimate between 35,000 and 60,000 barrels of oil have been flowing into the gulf every day since the Transocean Deepwater Horizon oil rig leased by BP sank in the gulf April 22, two days after it exploded, killing 11 workers.

The drilling of two relief wells was ahead of schedule, with the first one within 200-225 feet of the wellbore, Allen said. However, he said he was sticking to a mid-August completion time table.

Allen said, "They're at a point right now where they're going in 10- to 15-foot sections at a time to drill and then sense with electrical device the electromagnetic field around the wellbore as they slowly close in on it. This is a very precision, complicated operation. They're doing it very slowly to make sure they get the exact alignment they need before penetrating the wellbore. So while it's nice to be slightly ahead of schedule, I'm sticking to the middle of August, because we don't know the condition of the wellbore until we penetrate her." (With Inputs from Agencies)