Engineers searched for ways to capture more oil flowing from a ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico yesterday after energy giant BP said a cap was currently catching around 10,000 barrels a day.
As significant amounts of oil continued to escape into the sea, BP chief executive Tony Hayward told the BBC: “As we speak, the containment cap is producing around 10,000 barrels of oil a day to the surface.”
Earlier accounts put the amount of captured oil at 6,000 barrels a day. While encouraging, the new figure was dwarfed by estimates that up to 19,000 barrels a day could be spewing from the well.
He said yesterday he won’t step down over the spill, and predicted his company will recover.
Hayward added that he hoped that another containment system, to be installed next weekend, would help contain “the vast majority” of the leaking oil, but did not offer a specific figure.
The latest containment effort involves a cap placed over the leak that gathers the oil, allowing it to be siphoned up via a pipe to a container ship.
News of any successful effort to contain the disastrous spill will be welcomed by the four states so far affected by what is now the worst environmental disaster in US history. The slick is now threatening Alabama, Mississippi and Florida after contaminating more than 200km of Louisiana coastline. An estimated 476,000 barrels of crude has poured into the Gulf since the Deepwater Horizon sank on April 22, 80km off Louisiana.
Citing new government and BP documents and testimony by witnesses, the New York Times reported yesterday that a hodgepodge of oversight agencies granted rig operators exceptions to rules, allowed risks to accumulate and made the disaster more likely.
BP said on Saturday it had paid out US$46 million in more than 17,000 claims checks since the disaster began and expected to pay the same amount this month.
Meanwhile, an apologetic advertising campaign has earned the company more criticism than sympathy as the pollution spreads across the US Gulf Coast from Louisiana into Alabama and Florida.
The new radio, TV, online and print ads feature Hayward pledging to fix the damage and saying the company will “do everything we can so this never happens again.”
Picking up tar on Saturday with her parents on Pensacola Beach, 13-year-old Annie Landrum of Birmingham, Alabama, called Hayward’s apology a joke.
“It’s a lame attempt a month and half after the disaster. It’s too late,” she said.
Taiwanese Olympic badminton men’s doubles gold medalist Wang Chi-lin (王齊麟) and his new partner, Chiu Hsiang-chieh (邱相榤), clinched the men’s doubles title at the Yonex Taipei Open yesterday, becoming the second Taiwanese team to win a title in the tournament. Ranked 19th in the world, the Taiwanese duo defeated Kang Min-hyuk and Ki Dong-ju of South Korea 21-18, 21-15 in a pulsating 43-minute final to clinch their first doubles title after teaming up last year. Wang, the men’s doubles gold medalist at the 2020 and 2024 Olympics, partnered with Chiu in August last year after the retirement of his teammate Lee Yang
FALSE DOCUMENTS? Actor William Liao said he was ‘voluntarily cooperating’ with police after a suspect was accused of helping to produce false medical certificates Police yesterday questioned at least six entertainers amid allegations of evasion of compulsory military service, with Lee Chuan (李銓), a member of boy band Choc7 (超克7), and actor Daniel Chen (陳大天) among those summoned. The New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office in January launched an investigation into a group that was allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified medical documents. Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) has been accused of being one of the group’s clients. As the investigation expanded, investigators at New Taipei City’s Yonghe Precinct said that other entertainers commissioned the group to obtain false documents. The main suspect, a man surnamed
US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer began talks with high-ranking Chinese officials in Switzerland yesterday aiming to de-escalate a dispute that threatens to cut off trade between the world’s two biggest economies and damage the global economy. The US delegation has begun meetings in Geneva with a Chinese delegation led by Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰), Xinhua News Agency said. Diplomats from both sides also confirmed that the talks have begun, but spoke anonymously and the exact location of the talks was not made public. Prospects for a major breakthrough appear dim, but there is
The number of births in Taiwan fell to an all-time monthly low last month, while the population declined for the 16th consecutive month, Ministry of the Interior data released on Friday showed. The number of newborns totaled 8,684, which is 704 births fewer than in March and the lowest monthly figure on record, the ministry said. That is equivalent to roughly one baby born every five minutes and an annual crude birthrate of 4.52 per 1,000 people, the ministry added. Meanwhile, 17,205 deaths were recorded, resulting in a natural population decrease of 8,521, the data showed. More people are also leaving Taiwan, with net
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