BP's Gulf Oil Well Leak May Take Months to Shut After Rig Sinks [View All]

[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.