The Gulf of Mexico oil rig disaster will develop into one of the worst spills in US history if the well is not sealed, the coast guard officer leading the response warned on Tuesday.
BP, which leases the Deepwater Horizon platform, has been operating four robotic submarines some 1,500m down on the seabed to try to cap two leaks in the riser pipe that connected the rig to the wellhead.
But the best efforts of the British energy giant have yielded no progress so far, and engineers are frantically constructing a giant dome that could be placed over the leaks as a back-up plan to try and stop the oil spreading.
PHOTO: AFP/US COAST GUARD
Time is running out as a huge slick with a 965km circumference has moved within 34km of the ecologically fragile Louisiana coast despite favorable winds.
The US authorities said they were considering a controlled burn of oil captured in inflatable containment booms floating in the gulf to protect the shorelines of Louisiana and other southern states.
“I am going to say right up front: The BP efforts to secure the blowout preventer have not yet been successful,” Rear Admiral Mary Landry told a press conference, referring to a 450-tonne machine that could seal the well.
Asked to compare the accident to the notorious 1989 Exxon Valdez oil tanker disaster, Landry declined but said: “If we don’t secure the well, yes, this will be one of the most significant oil spills in US history.”
The US government promised a “comprehensive and through investigation” into the deadly explosion that sank the platform and pledged “every resource” to help stave off an environmental disaster.
The rig, which BP leases from Houston-based contractor Transocean, went down last Thursday 209km southeast of New Orleans, still burning off crude two days after a blast that killed 11 workers.
BP has sent a flotilla of 49 skimmers, tugs, barges, and recovery boats to mop up the spill, but their efforts were hampered at the weekend by strong winds and high seas.
A rig is on stand-by to start drilling two relief wells that could diverting the oil flow to new pipes and storage vessels.
But BP officials say the relief wells will take up to three months to drill, and with oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico at the rate of 159,999 liters a day, the dome is seen as a better interim bet.
US coast guard spokesman Prentice Danner said the dome would take two to four weeks to build.
“This is the first time this has ever been done. This idea didn’t exist until now. It has never been fabricated before,” he said.
The exact dimensions and design of the dome were still being worked out, but officials said it would be similar to welded steel containment structures called cofferdams.
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