NEW ORLEANS — BP reported some glimmers of progress on Monday in its efforts to stem oil leaks from an undersea well off the Louisiana coast that have created what President Obama called a “potentially unprecedented environmental disaster.”
Bill Salvin, a company spokesman, said that crews had finished building a containment dome, a 4-story, 70-ton structure that the company plans to lower into place over one of the three leaks to catch the escaping oil and allow it to be pumped to the surface. The other two domes would be completed on Tuesday, Mr. Salvin said, and crews hoped to install all three domes by the weekend.
“That will essentially eliminate most of the issues you have with oil in the water,” he said.
The company was also trying on Monday to install a shutoff valve at the site of one of the three leaks. But according to David Nicholas, a BP spokesman, after the stormy weather of the weekend, the seas at the site had still not calmed enough by midafternoon for the valve mechanism to be hoisted safely out of a support ship.
The efforts come as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the oil slick appeared to be drifting toward the Alabama and Florida coasts and the Chandeleur Islands off Louisiana’s southern tip.
Miles of floating booms laid out on coastal waters in hopes of protecting the shoreline from the spreading oil slick were damaged over the weekend by the heavy winds and rough seas, the Coast Guard said on Monday. Roughly 80 percent of the boom protecting the Alabama coast was damaged.
“Some of it has been torn apart, some of it is repairable, some was relocated by the weather,” said Petty Officer David Mosley of the Coast Guard. “We’re looking to fix what we can fix and replace what we can replace.”
All told, some 52 miles of booms have been deployed to try to corral the spill or to fend it off from vulnerable shorelines, he said. Crews were checking the condition of more than 6 miles of boom near the Mississippi-Alabama border, and other sections near the Mississippi and Louisiana coasts.
On Monday, BP said it would pay “all necessary and appropriate clean-up costs” from the disaster. Referring to the drilling rig that collapsed April 22 after a fire and explosion, causing the well it was drilling to leak, the company said: “BP takes responsibility for responding to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. We will clean it up.”
BP, which was leasing the Deepwater Horizon rig, has been working with an array of government agencies and private companies but has been unable so far to stop the flow of crude from the well.
President Obama visited Louisiana on Sunday afternoon for a firsthand look at the response effort, which has drawn criticism for the lack of rapid results.
“The oil that is still leaking from the well could seriously damage the economy and the environment of our gulf states, and it could extend for a long time,” Mr. Obama said. “It could jeopardize the livelihoods of thousands of Americans who call this place home.”
Bob Fryar, the company’s senior vice president for operations in Angola, who was brought to a command center in Houston for the engineering effort, said on Sunday that BP hoped to install a shut-off valve on one of the three leaks on Monday to stop some of the oil flow there. But the leak that is spewing the most oil, at the end of the broken riser pipe that once connected the well with the rig, cannot be shut off that way, Mr. Fryar said.
A device known as a blowout preventer, a towering stack of heavy equipment at the wellhead, 5,000 feet below the surface of the gulf, was supposed to seal the well quickly in the event of a burst of pressure, but it did not work when the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded.
On Sunday, Mr. Fryar and Charlie Holt, BP’s drilling operations manager for the gulf, described an audacious plan to confront the blowout preventer problem. In this approach, they would seal the well by cutting the riser at the wellhead, sliding a huge piece of equipment called the riser package out of the way and bolting a second blowout preventer atop the first one.
BP Says Crews Make Progress Stemming Oil Leaks - NYTimes.com
Bill Salvin, a company spokesman, said that crews had finished building a containment dome, a 4-story, 70-ton structure that the company plans to lower into place over one of the three leaks to catch the escaping oil and allow it to be pumped to the surface. The other two domes would be completed on Tuesday, Mr. Salvin said, and crews hoped to install all three domes by the weekend.
“That will essentially eliminate most of the issues you have with oil in the water,” he said.
The company was also trying on Monday to install a shutoff valve at the site of one of the three leaks. But according to David Nicholas, a BP spokesman, after the stormy weather of the weekend, the seas at the site had still not calmed enough by midafternoon for the valve mechanism to be hoisted safely out of a support ship.
The efforts come as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the oil slick appeared to be drifting toward the Alabama and Florida coasts and the Chandeleur Islands off Louisiana’s southern tip.
Miles of floating booms laid out on coastal waters in hopes of protecting the shoreline from the spreading oil slick were damaged over the weekend by the heavy winds and rough seas, the Coast Guard said on Monday. Roughly 80 percent of the boom protecting the Alabama coast was damaged.
“Some of it has been torn apart, some of it is repairable, some was relocated by the weather,” said Petty Officer David Mosley of the Coast Guard. “We’re looking to fix what we can fix and replace what we can replace.”
All told, some 52 miles of booms have been deployed to try to corral the spill or to fend it off from vulnerable shorelines, he said. Crews were checking the condition of more than 6 miles of boom near the Mississippi-Alabama border, and other sections near the Mississippi and Louisiana coasts.
On Monday, BP said it would pay “all necessary and appropriate clean-up costs” from the disaster. Referring to the drilling rig that collapsed April 22 after a fire and explosion, causing the well it was drilling to leak, the company said: “BP takes responsibility for responding to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. We will clean it up.”
BP, which was leasing the Deepwater Horizon rig, has been working with an array of government agencies and private companies but has been unable so far to stop the flow of crude from the well.
President Obama visited Louisiana on Sunday afternoon for a firsthand look at the response effort, which has drawn criticism for the lack of rapid results.
“The oil that is still leaking from the well could seriously damage the economy and the environment of our gulf states, and it could extend for a long time,” Mr. Obama said. “It could jeopardize the livelihoods of thousands of Americans who call this place home.”
Bob Fryar, the company’s senior vice president for operations in Angola, who was brought to a command center in Houston for the engineering effort, said on Sunday that BP hoped to install a shut-off valve on one of the three leaks on Monday to stop some of the oil flow there. But the leak that is spewing the most oil, at the end of the broken riser pipe that once connected the well with the rig, cannot be shut off that way, Mr. Fryar said.
A device known as a blowout preventer, a towering stack of heavy equipment at the wellhead, 5,000 feet below the surface of the gulf, was supposed to seal the well quickly in the event of a burst of pressure, but it did not work when the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded.
On Sunday, Mr. Fryar and Charlie Holt, BP’s drilling operations manager for the gulf, described an audacious plan to confront the blowout preventer problem. In this approach, they would seal the well by cutting the riser at the wellhead, sliding a huge piece of equipment called the riser package out of the way and bolting a second blowout preventer atop the first one.
BP Says Crews Make Progress Stemming Oil Leaks - NYTimes.com
