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VIA CNN.com:

Venice, Louisiana (CNN) — BP has collected 6,000 barrels of oil in the first 24 hours of pumping it from a ruptured well up to a drill ship, Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the federal government’s response manager, said Saturday.

But video taken Saturday still shows a stream of crude escaping into the Gulf of Mexico.

After many failed attempts, BP was able to place the cap on the well and siphon oil Friday from the well to the surface, where it flowed onto the awaiting drill ship Discover Enterprise. The 6,000 barrels is about 252,000 gallons.

By Friday afternoon, the company said on its website that it had collected 76,020 gallons of oil in the first 12 hours after it put the cap on the well, which is less than 10 percent of the 798,000 gallons of oil federal authorities estimate is pouring into the Gulf daily.

Over the weekend, BP said it planned to shut four vents on top of a containment cap from which oil was still escaping into the ocean.

Company officials said they hoped that closing the vents would greatly reduce the amount of oozing crude.

Oil has already affected coastal areas of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama and was drifting steadily toward Florida.

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