NEW ORLEANS – Oil was spewing largely unchecked into the Gulf of Mexico as BP crews claimed progress yesterday in the first stages of replacing a leaky cap with a new containment system they hope will finally catch all the crude from the busted well. There’s no guarantee for such a delicate operation nearly a mile below the water’s surface, officials said, and the permanent fix of plugging the well from the bottom remains slated for mid-August.“It’s not just going to be, you put the cap on, it’s done. It’s not like putting a cap on a tube of toothpaste,” Coast Guard spokesman Captain James McPherson said. Robotic submarines removed the cap Saturday that had been placed on top of the leak in early June to catch the oil and send it to surface ships for collection or burning. BP aims to have the new, tighter cap in place as early as Monday and said that, as of yesterday morning, the work was going according to plan. BP hopes the capping operation will be done within three to six days. Kent Wells, a BP senior vice president, said yesterday during a morning news briefing he was pleased with the progress but cautioned that unforeseen bumps could lie ahead.“We’ve tried to work out as many of the bugs as we can. The challenge will come with something unexpected,” Wells said. If tests show the new cap can withstand the pressure of the oil and is working, the Gulf region could get its most significant piece of good news since the April 20 explosion on the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig, which killed 11 workers. Since then, between 88 million and 174 million gallons of oil have spilled into the Gulf, according to federal estimates. It would be only a temporary solution. Hope for permanently plugging the leak lies with two relief wells, the first of which should be finished by mid-August. And the hurricane season that lasts through November could interfere. There are no storms forecast now, but if one blows through, the ships collecting the oil may have to leave and crude would spew again for days into the water.
(AP)
