Engineers mulled options yesterday after the first try to cap a ruptured pipe gushing oil into the Gulf of Mexico failed when ice crystals clogged a containment dome.
Officials said they have not yet given up hope of capping the leaks about 1,500m below the surface which are hemorrhaging an estimated 210,000 barrels a day.
But they cautioned it would likely be several days before a solution is found.
“I wouldn’t say it’s failed yet …What we attempted to do last night didn’t work because these hydrates plugged up the top of the dome,” said Doug Suttles, chief operating officer for British energy giant BP, which is responsible for the cleanup.
Clearing out the slushy crystals is easy — the 90-tonne chamber just has to be raised to warmer levels, Suttles told reporters. Keeping the crystals out so that a pipe can be lowered into the dome to suck the oil to a waiting barge is another matter.
The engineers are looking at ways to heat the frigid water in the dome, among other options, and have moved the concrete and steel box to rest on the seabed abour 200m away while they evaluate their options.
BP has already begun drilling relief wells to stem the flow, but it will take about three months for them to be operational.
It is also considering other temporary measures like trying to plug the leaks by injecting ground-up material in a “junk shot,” but Suttles said BP cannot proceed until it is sure that that “won’t make the situation worse.”
The BP official said his company had anticipated encountering hydrates, but had not thought they would be a significant a problem. The expectation was that the dome would be operational today, enabling BP to collect about 85 percent of the leaking crude by funneling it up to a barge on the surface.
An estimated 13.3 liters of oil has formed a slick the size of a small country which threatens the fragile coastal wetlands of Louisiana and the beaches of Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.
Favorable winds have kept the bulk of the oil from reaching shore since the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon sank about 80km southeast of Venice, Louisiana on April 22, two days after an explosion that killed 11 workers.
But with a thin sheen of oil now lapping Louisiana’s coastal islands, local leaders begged for more booms to protect vulnerable coastal wetlands and wildlife preserves, as well as multi billion-dollar fishing and tourism industries.
“It’ll be so much harder to clean up this oil if it gets into the marshes,” Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal said.
The US Coast Guard, which is overseeing the recovery effort, cautioned that resources must be used “strategically.”
“There’s not enough to completely boom off every piece of coastline for all four [gulf] states,” Coast Guard Petty Officer David Mosley said.
Fears are growing that the disaster is already impacting sea life in a region that is home to vital spawning grounds for fish, shrimp and crabs and a major migratory stop for rare birds.
“It’s going to destroy the industry — it will never recover if the oil gets into the marshlands,” said Cliff LeBoef, whose Louisiana oyster beds are only now recovering from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
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