The U.S. government on Tuesday began to test the oil industry's readiness to respond to a blown-out deepwater well in the Gulf of Mexico.

The drill, which started Tuesday morning and could go on for one week or more, focuses on the equipment of Marine Well Containment Company (MWCC) for capping blown-out underwater wells and containing the hydrocarbons gushing from them, said the Houston Chronicle website.

The Marine Well Containment Co. is an independent nonprofit organization based in Houston. It was founded by major oil companies including Exxon Mobil Corp, Chevron Corp., ConocoPhillips and Royal Dutch Shell PLC in the wake of the BP spill.

The Marine Well Containment Co. developed the system for the use in the Gulf of Mexico, modeling it after equipment that was used at BP's doomed Macondo well in 2010. The capping stack, a device similar to the one that stopped the BP oil spill, will be lowered by wire, a technique that could be potentially faster than the one used in 2010.

After the BP oil spill, U.S. regulators mandated oil companies drilling in U.S. waters to prove they can contain an blown-out underwater well. MWCC is one of two Gulf systems that can satisfy that mandate.

"This exercise will help further enhance industry's preparedness by deploying one important component of their well control capabilities to the sea floor," said Jim Watson, director of the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), in a news release.

"Testing this equipment in real-time conditions and ultra-deep water depths will help ensure that the MWCC is ready and able to respond in a moment's notice should the need arise," he said.

To recreate an emergency scenario, BSEE told an oil company that has contracted with MWCC that there had been a blowout at a well roughly 7,000 feet under the water. Over the next week or more, regulators will watch as MWCC mobilizes and responds to the pseudo-disaster in conjunction with that operator, Shell Oil Co.

During the drill, workers will deploy the MWCC capping stack to the sea floor, latch it to a test wellhead and pressurize the system.

The exercise will also test an operator's ability to arrange an array of support vessels and equipment that would be needed to contain a well, including devices for removing debris at the well site and systems for collecting oil.