The United States government has given BP PLC (BP) 72 hours to produce updated plans for containing the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico .

On-scene coordinator, Coast Guard Rear Admiral James Watson, ordered BP to produce contingency planning for its 'top hat' containment system and explain how it intends to recover the remaining crude and natural gas still leaking.

"BP shall provide the plans for these parallel, continuous, and contingency collection processes, including an implementation timeline, within 72 hours of receiving this letter," said an official letter, dated Tuesday.

The Coast Guard said Tuesday that BP engineers had captured 14,842 barrels of oil over the last 24 hours from a containment cap placed last week over the blown out well.

It remains unclear how much oil is spewing out of the busted wellhead, and officials have warned they won't be able to siphon off all of the excess crude until relief wells are completed in mid-August.

The letter, addressed to BP chief operating officer Doug Suttles, highlighted concerns about the capacity of the ship processing the oil and fears that operations could be derailed during the ongoing hurricane season.

"The system(s) established must have appropriate redundancies to maintain complete collection rates in the event that operational problems are encountered in any part of the system," it said.

"For example, if multiple oil recovery vessels are employed for collection/recovery efforts, redundancies must ensure that the failure of a vessel(s) does not reduce the capacity of the system for continuous recovery of oil."

Watson said, "it is imperative that you put equipment, systems and processes in place to ensure that the remaining oil and gas flowing can be recovered, taking into account safety, environmental and meteorological factors.

"There should be no interruptions of the recovery effort while awaiting another recovery vessel to arrive on scene," it said.

"Further, plans and processes must be put into place to ensure that, in the event that a hurricane or other severe weather causes recovery vessels to go off station, those vessels (or alternate vessels) can be brought back on station as quickly as possible after the storm passes and that collection efforts can resume without delay."

The letter shows the government stepping up the pressure on BP as President Barack Obama's administration faces growing political fallout over the worst man-made environmental disaster in U.S. history.

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