During the three hours it took to move the rig out of the way, the debris fell back to the bottom of the hole and clogged up the perforations.

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In March the well was actually perforated and flowing when the U.S. DOE made the operator shut it in and move the rig away from the platform, an atypical safety requirement imposed in the wake of the Macondo disaster.

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Earlier Wednesday, well control expert Calvin Barnhill testified that he believes Deepwater Horizon rig workers "got ahead of themselves" as they tried to seal the Macondo well and prepared to move on to drilling a different well.

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