With an eye to the future, the American Petroleum Institute, an industry group in Washington DC, is studying the most efficient means of injecting dispersant into a deep oil plume, as well as considering designs for dispersant applicators that could be installed at the wellhead in case of a spill. Study-group members are presenting their early findings at the conference. “We think subsurface dispersant played a critical role and that that response effort had a positive outcome,” says Emily Kennedy, a policy analyst at the institute.