BP not giving up despite oil leak repair setback
We are gonna need a miracle. God Speed to BP.
BP not giving up despite oil leak repair setback
Ice crystals encrusting a containment box forced crews to back off long-shot plan
By MONICA HATCHER HOUSTON CHRONICLE May 8, 2010, 10:45PM
A 100-ton containment box meant to capture oil leaking from a well under the Gulf of Mexico sat about 650 feet away from its target Saturday, as BP engineers try to find a way to stop the formation of icelike gas and water crystals that plugged the system shortly after being lowered to the seabed Friday.
The snag erased hopes that the four-story containment box, which took two weeks to build, could be quickly installed to intercept the flow of 5,000 barrels, or 42,000 gallons of oil, pulsing daily from the Macondo well that ruptured when the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded April 20 and later sank.
Nearly 4 million gallons of oil have poured into the Gulf since the accident that killed 11 people.
BP said the cofferdam was removed after near freezing temperatures and intense pressure caused methane hydrates to form on the sides of the structure, making it buoyant and blocking the top opening of the box from which oil is eventually supposed to flow into pipe connected to a tanker above.
“We did anticipate hydrates being a problem,” said Doug Suttles, BP's chief operating officer, “but not this significant.”
“I wouldn't say it's failed yet,” he added.
Still, the Associated Press reported on Saturday that BP officials overseeing the cleanup efforts were not giving up just yet on hopes that a containment box — either the one brought there or a larger one being built — could cover the well and be used to capture the oil and funnel it to a tanker at the surface to be carted away. Officials said it would be at least Monday before a decision was made on what next step to take.
Tar balls wash ashore
BP said the containment box, seen as the most immediate solution to mitigating the mounting environmental disaster, could capture as much as 85 percent of the flow.
On Saturday, the spill's orange tentacles lapped the shoreline of Louisiana's Chandeleur barrier islands, part of one of the oldest natural preserves in the country. The Coast Guard said dime to golf ball-size tar balls were washing ashore near Dauphin Island in Alabama, but were being tested to determine their source.
A part of the slick identified off the coast of Grand Isle, Miss., turned out to be an algae bloom, the Coast Guard said.
Even though trajectories from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration showed the spill still several days away from the Alabama coast, Rachel Wilhelm, a spokeswoman for NOAA, said it was possible for small tar balls to detach and make their way towards land.
“It doesn't mean the trajectories are not accurate,” she said.
Dispersants deployed
Response crews continued their furious work to secure the shorelines from the slick and its offshoots by deploying more boom and spraying dispersants to dissolve the oil, though choppy seas and winds prevented more controlled burns Saturday. Earlier in the week, responders said they had burned as much as 9,000 barrels of oil off the surface.
More than 2 million additional feet of boom are being brought in from abroad and 25,000 feet are being manufactured daily to prevent any shortages, Suttles said.
As efforts to protect the coasts were under way, Suttles, who spoke during a news conference in Robert, La., on Saturday afternoon, said the company would be investigating solutions to the hydrate problem over the next 48 hours, with hopes to redeploying the untested system.
A few possibilities include injecting the containment box with methanol, which would be used as a kind of antifreeze, or connecting it to the leaking pipe in such a way that would keep less water from entering it.
Another option could involve using the relief drilling rig itself so fluids could be pumped down and through the cofferdam, presumably warming it.
“It's difficult to predict whether we'll find solutions ... we're doing things that have never been done before,” Suttles said.
Even though BP said late last week it had given up efforts to activate the current blowout preventer sitting on top of the Macondo wellhead, the company continues to study the possibility of plugging the valve system with rubber cuttings and other materials to staunch the oil flow in a procedure called a “junk shot.” A relief well planned to intercept the unchecked well continued boring deep into the seabed, though the job could take months.
Ironic occurrence
The Minerals Management Service and the Coast Guard said Saturday they would hold the first public hearings of their joint investigation Tuesday and Wednesday in New Orleans into the circumstances of the Deepwater Horizon accident. As of Saturday evening, MMS had not released a list of witnesses that will testify.
In a cruel twist of irony, Suttles confirmed Saturday that several senior BP staff members, including its vice president for Gulf drilling, were on board the rig during the accident because they were commemorating 2,500 consecutive days without a significant safety incident on the Deepwater Horizon.
Of 126 people aboard, BP's six employees were among 115 people who survived the incident.
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