US government and BP officials are warning that the blown-out oil well causing an environmental disaster on the Gulf Coast may not be stopped until August as the company begins preparations on a new attempt to capture the leaking crude.
BP Plc will use undersea robots to begin cutting damaged pipe from its leaking oil well off Louisiana as early as Monday, risking temporarily increasing the flow as it seeks to end the largest oil spill in US history.
US energy secretary Steven Chu and interior secretary Ken Salazar approved the latest procedure to attach a pipe to the leak so the oil can flow to a surface vessel for capturing, White House Energy Adviser Carol Browner said yesterday. The decision comes after a three-day effort to plug the well failed.
The disaster, in its 42nd day on Monday, is already the largest oil spill in US history and officials are calling it the country?s biggest environmental catastrophe. In the wake of a devastating failure this weekend to plug the BP well with the tricky ?top kill? operation, BP chief executive Tony Hayward said the Gulf of Mexico leak may not be stopped for two months.
?There?s no doubt that the ultimate solution lies on the relief well, which is in August,? he said on Sunday.
The drilling of two relief wells began in May, an expensive but reliable way to intercept and cap the leaking well that ruptured with a deadly rig explosion on April 20. In the meantime, Hayward said BP needs ?to be in the mind-set of containment in the sub-sea, containment on the surface and defending the shoreline, in a very aggressive way.?
The Gulf spill has surpassed the Exxon Valdez disaster off Alaska in 1989 as the worst US oil spill, with an estimated 12,000 to 19,000 barrels (504,000 to 798,000 gallons/1.9 million to 3 million liters) leaking per day.
If the containment operation works? and BP expects to know later this weeks?then at least some of the leaking oil could be piped to the surface. But even President Barack Obama?s administration, facing a barrage of criticism that they have been slow to respond to the crisis, is looking toward August and the relief well solution.