BP's Gulf Oil Well Leak May Take Months to Shut After Rig Sinks

[joshcryer]

April 25 (Bloomberg) -- BP Plc said it may take at least two or three months to drill a relief well to stop a 1,000- barrel-a-day oil leak into the Gulf of Mexico after a drilling rig caught fire and sank last week. The company is also trying to shut the well's valve with robots.

The oil spill, which covers 600 square miles (1,554 square kilometers), won't reach a shoreline within the next three days, said Charlie Henry, a scientific support coordinator with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration during a teleconference today. Henry said it isn't possible to give estimates beyond three days.

Swiss drilling contractor, Transocean Ltd., is shipping in two rigs to stop the leak with the first scheduled to arrive tomorrow and the second May 2. The companies may need a relief well if the blowout valve isn't activated. A relief well would intercept the leakage and inject a heavy fluid to prevent oil or gas from escaping, London-based exploration company BP said in a separate statement. That would allow the well to be sealed.

"The relief well as described could take several months," Doug Suttles, BP's chief operating officer of exploration and production, said on the teleconference.

The response group, including BP and Transocean, began using remote operated vehicles at 8 a.m. local time today to try to switch on the blowout value, part of a 50-feet tall and 18- feet wide housing on the sea floor. It may take 24 to 36 hours to complete the work, Suttles said.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/04/25/bloomberg1376-L1GEGS07SXKX-1.DTL

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FYI, 1,000 oil barrels = 42,000 gallons.

This is a very bad disaster.

[aquart]

1. So gulf shrimp is over for the foreseeable future?

But Obama wants more coastal drilling?

Btw, how did this happen?

[joshcryer]

2. This is the rig that blew up, don't know a cause yet:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x243136

If you come across the cause I'd be interested.

[joshcryer]

3. And yeah, the gulf is so screwed.

[Purveyor]

4. With the counter-clockwise currents in the Gulf, I doubt the Texas coastline will be spared. eom

[joshcryer]

5. Kick.

Halfway down the page already.

[NNadir]

6. Don't worry about it. Greenpeace types will dress up in clown suits and block it from leaking all

over the Gulf.

[aquart]

7. So how do you feel about rubbing two sticks together?

[joshcryer]

8. Wonder if BP will be forced to do the cleanup when it hits land.

[Statistical]

9. Likely however I doubt the economic/enviromental cost will be anything like Valdez.

The Valdez accident was 11 million gallons, which spilled very rapidly (a giant hole something like 100,000 gallons per hour), and it spilled into a relatively small body of water.
As such the oil didn't get diluted, there was little chance to contain spill on water, and it hit hundreds of miles of coast all at once.

This spill not so much. Not to say it isn't bad. Kinda like the thousands of small car accidents kill more people than the giant one that makes the news.

[joshcryer]

10. Fair enough, you do have a good point.

This will get really diluted and dispersed throughout the oceans, but it will take some time. It'll place a huge toll on wildlife, though. The economic impact may not be too bad.