Oil giant BP succeeded Sunday in connecting a mile-long pipe to help
capture what it hoped will be a majority of the oil flowing from a
damaged well into the
The company initially connected the suction pipe for
about four hours just after midnight Sunday, sending some oil, gas and
water to an oil tanker 5,000 feet above the seabed, but then the pipe
was dislodged. It was reconnected late Sunday morning.
“We’re looking to optimize this over the next couple days to try to produce as much oil and gas as we can,” said
BP’s senior vice president for exploration and production, at a press
conference. He added that while the amount of oil being captured was
gradually increasing, the company had not measured it.
The effort doesn’t plug the massive oil leak that began on
when an offshore rig caught fire and sank, but it’s the first success
in almost a month to begin capping the erupting flow. A similar effort
had failed early Saturday.
Despite BP’s success Sunday, scientists say the
large swatch of oil covering the gulf already has had a monumental
ecological impact.
Satellite images taken Saturday by
“I think the threat to
who had not seen the images. “It’s hard to predict but if it gets in
the loop current it can happen as quickly as 7 to 10 days…If it does
happen, it is bad news for us.”
At the oil-leak site, a tube five-feet long and four
inches in diameter was pushed into a leaking riser that’s 21 inches in
diameter — the source of most of the spill. The inserted tube has three
large flexible rubber diaphragms to keep it in the riser and block oil
and water from mixing; however, BP officials said the riser is still
leaking some oil.
The pipe is full of nitrogen, which is slowly being
pulled back to let oil and gas flow in while keeping water from
entering. Methanol, a kind of antifreeze, is also being pumped into the
riser to stop crystals from forming that could block gas and oil from
flowing to the ship. Crystals got in the way of a previous attempt to
lower a 78-ton containment cap over the leak site.
The surface tanker will separate the oil, gas and
water mixture for storage and eventual offloading. Overnight some of
the collected gas was burned through a flare system on the tanker. BP
officials weren’t able to specify Sunday how much the tanker can hold.
“It’s a positive move, but let’s keep it in context.
We’re not shutting off the flow of oil from this well, and we will do
that when we do the top kill procedure,” Wells said.
The “top-kill” involves jamming up to 50,000 barrels
of a heavy-density mud-like liquid into channels leading to the oil
well, effectively overpowering the leak before adding cement to seal it
off. BP officials said it would attempt a “top kill” in a week to 10
days.
“The more mud we get into the well, the lower the rate and pressure will be” of the spill, Wells said.
The insertion of the tube into the oil-disgorging
pipe is the only successful attempt the company has had in curbing the
ecological disaster that threatens the Gulf and
A containment vessel — four feet in diameter and
five feet long — or “top hat” that engineers would try to place over
the main leaking pipe is also sitting on the sea floor as another
option. Oil captured in it would also be pumped to a barge.
Officials also have not ruled out a “junk shot,”
which entails shooting golf balls, shredded tires, knotted pieces of
rope and other debris into the oil well to clog the leak.
BP also has started drilling two relief wells, which
experts say is the most fail-proof long-term solution to stopping the
spill. That process will not be completed until August.
On Sunday, scientists said the discovery of large
submerged oil plumes — one up to 10 miles long — raised fears of more
damage to the Gulf. They also raised questions about when large amounts
of crude might hit shore. Occasional tar balls have been seen on
beaches in a few states, but there have not been any reports of large
amounts of oil washing ashore.
In
to pay for police, fire fighters, engineering and other personnel to
take care of everything from traffic control to hazard response. The
funding is for 8 months and could change depending on what type of
cleanup ultimately is needed.
Moran said
to hire its own environmental engineers and protect the many marshes
with a more substantial barrier than the “flimsy” boom that Moran said
now in place.
BP officials told the city it will bring in shock absorber booms if and when the oil approaches the shore.
“It’s not enough to placate me,” Moran said. She
learned after Hurricane Katrina that help promised to arrive in 72
hours came more than 10 days later, and she doesn’t want the city to be
in that position again.
“I’m going to be prepared for what we need to do to protect
About 15 marshes back up into residential areas and
she said while residents aren’t in a panic. “They’re alarmed. They
demand we be as prepared as we can be.”
A BP trainer will teach a 4-hour hazard course for
up100 city employees and more sessions for the public are planned for
Thursday and Friday.
At least 210,000 gallons of oil have been gushing
into the Gulf each day since the Deepwater Horizon exploded, and some
scientists think the leak may be 10 times as bad.
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(c) 2010, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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