Engineers monitored a newly capped oil well in the Gulf of Mexico yesterday amid cautious optimism the months-long spill behind the worst environmental disaster in US history has been finally contained.
The tests, which involve multiple pressure readings on the wellbore that runs to the oil reservoir below the seabed, have provided “valuable information” and would continue into yesterday, Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen said.
Once the analysis is complete, the British energy firm will open the new cap and resume siphoning off the oil to two production vessels on the sea surface, he added.
BP said earlier on Saturday that the cap placed over the gushing wellhead was still holding back spilling crude, but the results of tests on the well’s structure required more analysis.
“We’re feeling more confident that we have integrity,” BP senior vice president Kent Wells told reporters.
The tests began on Thursday after valves on the cap were sealed, choking off the flow of crude into the Gulf for the first time since the spill began in April.
Allen said that pressure in the capping stack was continuing to increase “very slowly and we want to continue to monitor this progress.”
BP also brought in a ship from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to survey the area. If there was a leak, BP would have to open the valves holding back the oil and allow the crude to once again flow freely into the Gulf, experts said.
The oil firm plans to eventually reach a total collection capacity of up to 80,000 barrels per day — more than the estimated volume of the spill.
The containment cap is a temporary solution to the broken well, which spewed oil into the Gulf for months following the April 20 rig explosion. Progress continues on two relief wells, expected to be completed in the middle of next month, which Allen recalled are “the ultimate step in stopping the BP oil leak for good.”
“We’re feeling very good at this point about how the well is lining up,” Wells said.
Nothing but a white cap and underwater robots appeared on Saturday on a video feed that had for weeks shown clouds of oil gushing forth at an estimated rate of 35,000 to 60,000 barrels a day.
However temporary, the halt provided a glimmer of hope that the worst oil spill in US history could soon be over, allowing efforts to turn to the grim job of cleaning up hundreds of kilometers of contaminated shorelines.
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