3 months into Gulf disaster, BP says relief tunnel should reach blown-out well by weekend

After several days of concern about the well's stability and the leaky cap keeping the oil mostly bottled up, retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said Tuesday that engineers concluded the risk of a bigger blowout was minimal and were getting closer to pumping mud into the column to permanently seal it.

"We continue to be pleased with the progress," Allen said in Washington, giving the go-ahead to keep the well cap shut for at least 24 more hours and possibly longer.

BP vice president Kent Wells said crews hope to drill sideways into the blown-out well and intercept it at the end of July. The relief well is necessary to plug the well permanently.

After it's done, crews will begin the kill procedure, pumping mud and cement into the hole a mile underwater to seal it, which BP said could take anywhere from five days to a couple of weeks.

A summary of events Tuesday, July 20, Day 91 of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill that began with the April 20 explosion and fire on the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon, owned by Transocean Ltd. and leased by BP PLC, which is in charge of cleanup and containment. The blast killed 11 workers. Since then, oil poured into the Gulf from a blown-out undersea well until BP managed to stanch the leak Thursday

India keen to buy BP's assets in Vietnam: Deora

With BP Plc looking at selling interest in some fields to fund its the Gulf of Mexico oil spill liability, India is pitching for buying the British energy giant's stake in the $1.3 billion Nam Con Son gas project in Vietnam.

Oil Minister Murli Deora flew into the Vietnamese capital on Wednesday with heads of bluechip Indian oil firms to lay a claim with Hanoi on BP's stake in two offshore gas fields, a pipeline and power project - together referred as Nam Con Son, Vietnam's largest gas project.

"This is a great opportunity for us. The gas fields were originally allocated to us but due to foreign exchange crisis of 1990s, we had to farm-out (give away) some stake to BP. We will like to get back that stake,"

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A summary of events on Thursday, June 3, Day 44 of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill that began with the April 20 explosion and fire on the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon, owned by Transocean Ltd. and leased by BP PLC, which is in charge of cleanup and containment. The blast killed 11 workers. Since then, oil has been pouring into the Gulf from a blown-out undersea well.

GIANT SHEARS

Engineers were forced yet again to reconfigure plans to execute their latest gambit to control the Gulf of Mexico gusher. BP PLC planned to use giant shears to cut a pipe a mile below the sea after a diamond-tipped saw became stuck halfway through the job. It was another frustrating delay in six weeks of failed efforts to stop, or at least curtail, the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

UNPREPARED

BP PLC's top executive acknowledged the global oil giant was unprepared to fight a catastrophic deepwater oil spill. Chief Executive Tony Hayward told The Financial Times it was "an entirely fair criticism" to say the company had not been fully prepared for a deepwater oil leak. Hayward called it "low-probability, high-impact" accident. "What is undoubtedly true is that we did not have the tools you would want in your tool-kit," Hayward said in an interview published in Thursday's edition of the London-based newspaper.

April 20, 2010 - Explosion and fire on Transocean Ltd's drilling rig Deepwater Horizon licensed to BP (BP.L); 11 workers are killed. The rig was drilling in BP's Macondo project 42 miles (68 km) southeast of Venice, Louisiana, beneath about 5,000 feet (1,525 metres) of water and 13,000 feet (4 km) under the seabed.

April 22 - The Deepwater Horizon rig, valued at more than $560 million, sinks and a five mile long (8 km) oil slick is seen.

April 25 - The Coast Guard approves a plan to have remote underwater vehicles activate a blowout preventer and stop leak. Efforts to activate the blowout preventer fail.

April 28 - The Coast Guard says the flow of oil is 5,000 barrels per day (bpd) (210,000 gallons/795,000 litres) -- five times greater than first estimated. A controlled burn is held on the giant oil slick.

April 29 - U.S. President Barack Obama pledges "every single available resource," including the U.S. military, to contain the spreading spill.

-- Obama also says BP is responsible for the cleanup. Louisiana declares state of emergency due to the threat to the state's natural resources.

April 30 - An Obama aide says no drilling will be allowed in new areas, as the president had recently proposed, until the cause of the Deepwater Horizon accident is known.

-- BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward says the company takes full responsibility for the spill and would pay all legitimate claims and the cost of the cleanup.

May 2 - Obama visits the Gulf Coast to see cleanup efforts first hand. U.S. officials close areas affected by the spill to fishing for an initial period of 10 days. BP starts to drill a relief well alongside the failed well, a process that will take two to three months to complete.

May 5 - A barge begins towing a 98-ton containment chamber to the site of the leak. BP says one of the three leaks has been shut off by capping a valve, but that will not cut the amount of oil gushing out.

May 6 - Oil washes ashore on the Chandeleur Islands off the Louisiana coast, uninhabited barrier islands that are part of the Breton National Wildlife Refuge.

May 7 - BP tries to lower the containment dome over the leak, but the device was rendered useless by a slush of frozen hydrocarbons that clogged it. A fishing ban for federal waters off the Gulf is modified, expanded and extended.

May 9 - BP says it might try to plug the undersea leak by pumping materials such as shredded up tires and golf balls into the well at high pressure, a method called a "junk shot."

May 11/12 - Executives from BP, Transocean and Halliburton appear at congressional hearings in Washington. Senate Energy Committee chairman Jeff Bingaman says that it appears that the explosion on the rig is due to a "cascade of errors", technical, human and regulatory. The executives blame each other's companies.

May 14 - Obama slams companies involved in the spill, criticizing them for a "ridiculous spectacle" of publicly trading blame over the accident in his sternest comments yet.

May 16 - BP succeeds in inserting a tube into the leaking riser pile of the well and capturing some oil and gas.

May 18 - The U.S. nearly doubles a no-fishing zone in waters affected by the oil, extending it to 19 percent of U.S. waters in the Gulf.

May 19 - The first heavy oil from the spill sloshes ashore in fragile Louisiana marshlands and part of the fragmented oil slick enters a powerful current that could carry it to the Florida Keys and beyond.

May 26 - A "top kill" maneuver starts, involving pumping heavy fluids and other material into the well shaft to try to stifle the flow.

May 28 - Obama tours the Louisiana Gulf coast on his second visit - "I am the president and the buck stops with me," he said.

-- BP CEO Tony Hayward flies over the Gulf. BP says the disaster has so far cost the company $930 million.

May 29 - BP says the complex "top kill" maneuver to plug the well has failed, crushing hopes for a quick end to the largest oil spill in U.S. history already in its 40th day.

June 1 - BP shares plunge 17 percent in London trading, wiping $23 billion off its market value, on news the latest attempt to plug the well has failed.

-- U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder says the Justice Department has launched a criminal and civil investigation into the rig explosion and the spill.

June 2 - BP continues work on a new plan to try to capture most of the escaping oil. This involves using robot submarines to cut off what is left of the leaking riser pipe, then lowering a containment cap over the wellhead assembly. Some difficulties are encountered with the cutting operation.

-- U.S. authorities expand fishing restrictions to cover 37 percent of U.S. federal waters in the Gulf.

June 3 - After previous sharp declines, BP shares rise more than 3 percent on market hopes that the latest plan to control the leaking well may make some progress. The six-week-old crisis has wiped a third off BP's market value since it began. (Compiled by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit; Editing by Pascal Fletcher)

Referencia: reuters.com

BP Turns to Giant Shears in Latest Attempt to Stem Oil Spill: BP’s latest attempt to contain the spill, dubbed by some as a cut and cap” procedure, hit a snag yesterday when a robotic diamond-edged saw became stuck in a leaking, 20-inch pipe on the sea floor. It took about 12 hours for engineers to free the saw from the pipe.

When the setback occurred, the saw was making the second of two cuts the procedure requires. Once the second cut is made, the plan is to lower a containment dome to capture most – but not all – of the oil flow and send it up to a tanker on the surface. The pipe needs to be cut to allow a snug fit for the dome.

According to MSNBC, the saw has been hauled back up to a ship in the Gulf of Mexico, and BP is now planning to use giant shears to finish cutting the pipe. The shears have already been used to slice off another part of the riser.

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill began on April 20, when the oil rig exploded, killing 11 crew. Since then, the gushing well spewing as much as 800,000 gallons of oil per day into the Gulf of Mexico.

So far, all of BP’s attempts to stop the leaking have failed. There is no guarantee this latest try will work either, and even if it does, it is not expected to contain all of the oil spewing into the Gulf. There is even a chance it could worsen the situation, and increase the flow by as much as 20 percent.

The oil leak won’t be permanently stopped until BP completes one of two relief wells it is drilling nearby. The earliest that will occur is mid-August.

BP’s inability to handle the disaster has provoked a great deal of anger. Yesterday, the company’s CEO, Tony Hayward, told the Financial Times it was entirely fair” to criticize BP for not being better equipped for the spill.

What is certainly true is that we did not have the tools we would like to have at our disposal,” said Hayward.

Hayward went on to say that BP was looking for new ways to manage low-probability, high-impact” risks such as the Deepwater Horizon oil rig accident.

Despite conceding that his company wasn’t prepared to deal with the leak, Hayward insisted it has bee very successful” in keeping oil away from the Gulf coast. Considering how big this has been, very little has got away from us,” he told the Financial Times.

Most people living in Gulf Coast communities will likely have a bit of trouble believing those assertions. Louisiana has already seen 125 miles of coastline fouled by the spill, with thick crude moving into the state’s vital marshes and wetlands. Oil has washed up in Alabama and Mississippi as well, and the slick is said to be only miles from Florida’s Pensacola Beach.

Referencia: newsinferno.com