Energy giant BP was expected to begin a new effort yesterday to contain the Gulf of Mexico oil spill by placing a better cap over the gushing well in the hope of stopping the flow of oil completely. Admiral Thad Allen, who oversees the government’s spill response, said late on Friday that he had approved the plan to simultaneously install the Helix Producer and “capping stack” containment mechanisms over the well.
However, the operation will require temporary suspension of the current top hat containment system. That means about 15,000 barrels of oil a day that had been collected through the old capping system will spew directly into the Gulf until the new cap is in place.
“I validated this plan because the capacity for oil containment when these installations are complete will be far greater than the capabilities we have achieved using current systems,” Allen said.
He said favorable weather was expected in the spill area over the coming days, which “will provide the working conditions necessary for these transitions to be successfully completed without delays.”
The transition to this new containment infrastructure could begin in the next days, but will take seven to 10 days to complete, the admiral said. If successful, the new cap could capture all of the crude spilling into the Gulf and allow it to be siphoned up to container vessels on the surface, in effect halting the devastating spill of crude into the sea that has imperiled fragile coastlines and wildlife across the Gulf Coast.
The operation is the latest attempt to contain the spill that was sparked by the April 20 explosion aboard the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon oil rig.
Meanwhile, BP said in a letter to Allen that it wanted to move forward with its plan.
BP managing director Bob Dudley said the company wanted to take advantage of forecast good weather to place a more effective cap over the leak and hook up the new containment ship, the Helix Producer.
Under a timeline released by BP, the relief well that would permanently seal the leak would be completed by Aug. 13.
Earlier, Allen said he was optimistic about a fix soon for the environmental disaster.
“We have a significant chance to dramatically reduce the oil that’s being released into the environment and maybe shut the well altogether in the next week,” he told CNN on Friday.
The White House has pushed for the new containment device because its superior seal is expected to capture the entire leak and is better equipped to deal with a hurricane threat in the storm-prone Gulf.
Crews have already seen clean-up and containment operations hampered by bad weather and with an active storm season predicted, officials are busy developing contingencies.
The new system will use “quick-disconnect couplings” allowing container ships to shut down operations and exit the area quickly in the face of a hurricane, Allen said.
The news comes just after US President Barack Obama’s administration lost a bid to lift a stay of its six-month freeze on deepwater drilling in the Gulf.
Current government estimates of the spill range from between 35,000 to 60,000 barrels a day, based on interpretation of a live video feed of the leak.
An estimated 2 million to 4 million barrels of oil have gushed into the Gulf waters since the spill began, and a permanent solution is not expected until one of two relief wells is completed.
Oil has now washed up on beaches in all five Gulf states — Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida — forcing the closure of fishing grounds and threatening scores of coastal communities with financial ruin.
The spill prompted the Obama administration to order a moratorium on deepwater drilling, but the freeze was overturned by a federal court last month and an appeals court upheld that ruling on Thursday.
Also See: Arctic oil drilling plan condemned
CLASH OF WORDS: While China’s foreign minister insisted the US play a constructive role with China, Rubio stressed Washington’s commitment to its allies in the region The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday affirmed and welcomed US Secretary of State Marco Rubio statements expressing the US’ “serious concern over China’s coercive actions against Taiwan” and aggressive behavior in the South China Sea, in a telephone call with his Chinese counterpart. The ministry in a news release yesterday also said that the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs had stated many fallacies about Taiwan in the call. “We solemnly emphasize again that our country and the People’s Republic of China are not subordinate to each other, and it has been an objective fact for a long time, as well as
‘CHARM OFFENSIVE’: Beijing has been sending senior Chinese officials to Okinawa as part of efforts to influence public opinion against the US, the ‘Telegraph’ reported Beijing is believed to be sowing divisions in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture to better facilitate an invasion of Taiwan, British newspaper the Telegraph reported on Saturday. Less than 750km from Taiwan, Okinawa hosts nearly 30,000 US troops who would likely “play a pivotal role should Beijing order the invasion of Taiwan,” it wrote. To prevent US intervention in an invasion, China is carrying out a “silent invasion” of Okinawa by stoking the flames of discontent among locals toward the US presence in the prefecture, it said. Beijing is also allegedly funding separatists in the region, including Chosuke Yara, the head of the Ryukyu Independence
UNITED: The premier said Trump’s tariff comments provided a great opportunity for the private and public sectors to come together to maintain the nation’s chip advantage The government is considering ways to assist the nation’s semiconductor industry or hosting collaborative projects with the private sector after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 100 percent tariff on chips exported to the US, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. Trump on Monday told Republican members of the US Congress about plans to impose sweeping tariffs on semiconductors, steel, aluminum, copper and pharmaceuticals “in the very near future.” “It’s time for the United States to return to the system that made us richer and more powerful than ever before,” Trump said at the Republican Issues Conference in Miami, Florida. “They
GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: Taiwan must capitalize on the shock waves DeepSeek has sent through US markets to show it is a tech partner of Washington, a researcher said China’s reported breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI) would prompt the US to seek a stronger alliance with Taiwan and Japan to secure its technological superiority, a Taiwanese researcher said yesterday. The launch of low-cost AI model DeepSeek (深度求索) on Monday sent US tech stocks tumbling, with chipmaker Nvidia Corp losing 16 percent of its value and the NASDAQ falling 612.46 points, or 3.07 percent, to close at 19,341.84 points. On the same day, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Sector index dropped 488.7 points, or 9.15 percent, to close at 4,853.24 points. The launch of the Chinese chatbot proves that a competitor can
RSS