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Update:
Another strike out: BP's top kill operation fails to halt oil flow
(5/30/2010 - OGI: Houston) BP advised late yesterday that its latest attempt to stop the Gulf of Mexico oil leak - now the worst oil spill in United States history - has failed.
Doug Suttles, BP's chief operating officer, said in a late afternoon press conference that the top kill approach that had been underway over three days, failed. "We have not been able to stop the flow," he said. "This scares everybody, the fact that we can't make this well stop flowing, the fact that we haven't succeeded so far."
Suttles said it pumped 30,000 bbl of drilling mud into the well and injected debris such as rubber, rope, and other blocking material into the well in hope of stopping the oil flow and forcing it back down the wellbore, but neither worked.
Previously, BP sought to shut-off the well with robotic attempts to close valves on the blowout preventer (BOP), but that failed due to the BOP not functioning as it was supposed to under these circumstances. There were attempts to repair the non-functioning controls, but they were also unsuccessful. Next the company sought to place a containment dome over the leak to catch and carry to the surface much of the gushing oil, but the formation of gas hydrates brought that to an unsuccessful end. Then came the try at capturing most of the oil being released into the water by inserting a siphoning tube into the mangled riser, but that, too, failed.
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The LMRP. |
A smaller cap was readied to try to catch and pipe to the surface the escaping oil but it has not yet been deployed, and instead of trying it now, the company has decided to shift its subsea efforts to the installation of a lower marine riser package (LMRP) cap containment system, which involves robotically removing the jagged edge of the riser and place the LMRP over it to capture and carry to the surface most of the estimated 12,000 to 19,000 b/d of oil pouring into the Gulf - which will take four to seven days to determine if it works. Like the rest of the attempts to stop the oil spill, this has not been done before at such a water depth and may not succeed, according to BP.
Already, the oil spill has penetrated the outer boundaries of the Louisiana coastline and is entering the fragile marshes and wetlands, where the environmental damage will severely hit the Gulf fishing industry and be years before remediation is effective. Some 20,000 people have been deployed to try to prevent as much of the oil contamination as possible.
BP is the operator of Mississippi Canyon Block 252 and the blow-out Macondo well, with 65% interest. Anadarko holds 25% and Mitsui Oil has the remaining 10%. They are all liable for the costs of the blowout on a proportionate basis. BP said today it has spent more than US$940 million so far, but analysts are estimating the cost of clean-up and compensation will be at least $12 billion.
Click here for earlier report.
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