US oil company Chevron promised to fully clean up a spill off Brazil’s coast, Chevron Brazil chief executive George Buck said on Sunday, taking responsibility for an accident that has become a major test for one of the world’s fastest-growing oil frontiers.
The leak from the undersea well, which is owned in partnership with Brazil’s state-controlled Petrobras and a Japanese consortium, has been plugged and the residual oil flow from undersea rock is now “more than 10 barrels,” but “less than hundreds of barrels” per day, Buck said.
“Chevron takes full responsibility for this incident,” Buck told reporters in Rio de Janeiro. “We will share the lessons learned here in the hope that this sort of incident won’t happen again in Brazil or anywhere else in the world.”
Photo: AFP
The spill, one of the largest to hit Brazil’s growing offshore oil industry, has raised questions about its safety and ability to respond to accidents. Oil companies in Brazil are testing the limits of drilling as they seek oil at depths as much as 7km below the ocean surface, which puts equipment and people under strains often compared with those for space flight.
Opposition to offshore drilling is growing worldwide in the wake of the estimated 4 million barrel BP Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico last year. Brazil’s Federal Police are probing the spill for possible criminal action.
Buck told a news conference that the spill was the result of an underestimate of pressure in the offshore oil reservoir being targeted. At the same time, the company overestimated the strength of undersea rock through which they were drilling.
As a result, high pressure oil was able to leak into the well borehole, overcoming a liquid sealant and well cleaning fluid known as “mud.” Because of the low pressure estimate, the mud was mixed “too light” to keep the oil under control.
While the well was immediately shut off, the pressure from the so-called “kick” as oil rushed up through the well mud bore-hole, or outside edge of the well structure, to crack.
Oil then seeped through more than 500m of crevices and porous rock to the seafloor. From there, it bubbled more than a kilometer up to the ocean surface.
Chevron, which experienced the pressure “kick” on Nov. 7, has come under criticism in Brazilian newspapers for failing to provide an immediate explanation for the spill and for a failure to provide a clear estimate of how much oil has leaked into the ocean.
The company, though, says the problem was brought under control within four days despite major transportation, weather, geological and environmental challenges.
“It’s an accomplishment to bring something like this under control in four days in deep water,” Buck said. “We were 160km from the coast and 300km from our base [in Rio de Janeiro].”
At first Chevron did not realize it was responsible for the leak that was discovered on Nov. 8 by workers on a Petrobras platform southeast of the Chevron well-site, he said.
As the blowout preventer worked as designed after the pressure kick, and no oil was leaking from around the well head, Chevron assumed the leak it came from the nearby Petrobras platform or from a Petrobras undersea oil pipeline that runs on the seabed near the leak, Buck said.
Failure of the blow-out preventer was the cause of the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
After searching the ocean floor with remote-controlled submarines — the depths are too great for human divers — the leaks were found, Buck said.
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