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BP breathes sigh of relief as risky mud blast appears to have stopped leak
The stakes could hardly have been higher but for BP it was a gamble that appears, for now, to have paid off.
After weeks of planning, at 11.30am local time yesterday the US Coast Guard gave a final go-ahead to begin the “top kill” manoeuvre to try to end the worst oil leak in US history.
The operation, using specialised drilling mud and cement, could have ended in disaster. Engineers feared that far from stopping it, the procedure could have destroyed the wellhead, unleashing an even faster torrent of oil.
But as Tony Hayward, BP’s chief executive, and Kent Wells, a Canadian executive masterminding the operation, watched the seabed intently on screens in Houston, hundreds of miles away, an order was issued to the Q4000 surface ship to begin pumping.
The mud — a viscous mix of clay, water and minerals — was sent down through a thick pipe to a manifold on the seabed a mile down, and from there using massive hydraulic pressure through 3in (76mm) red hoses into both sides of the blowout preventer — the valve on the wellhead through which the oil was leaking.
The principle was to use the downward pressure of the mud to counter the upward force of the oil gushing from a reservoir two miles beneath the seabed. After stabilising the well, a final plug of cement was to be injected to cap the leak permanently.
BP made no secret that this was a risky manoeuvre, never attempted at such depths. Doug Suttles, the chief operating officer for exploration and production, had given it no more than a 70 per cent chance of success, while in an e-mail to staff, Mr Hayward had said: “As with all of the interventions, this would be another first for this technology at these water depths, and so we cannot take its success for granted.”
On the ocean surface, close to the location where the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank on April 22, about 50,000 barrels of mud were held in reserve. Operators started building pressure, gradually, to 65 barrels of mud per minute. About 19 hours later, and it appeared that the plan was working. Admiral Thad Allen of the US Coast Guard said the procedure had“stabilised the wellhead”.
Last night, BP said it was suspending the work to allow experts to analyse the results, but insisted that pumping would resume in a few hours, and would continue for another day.
Simon Boxall, an oil spill specialist at the University of Southampton, said: “The heavy mud is a temporary plug while they get in the main bung — the cement. The most difficult part is the engineering side. You can never say you are home and dry but they now have a very good chance of success.”
With mud leaking at high pressure from the top of the blowout preventer, officials appeared hopeful. For BP, the alternative is truly grim. As a back-up, engineers have prepared a “junk shot” to fire shredded rope, tyres and golf balls into the blowout preventer.
If this, too, were to fail, the only realistic option would be the relief wells being drilled, but these would take a further two months to complete, leaving oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico until August with grave consequences for the environment — and the company.
GRAND ISLE, La. — President Barack Obama says people in the Gulf are “watching their livelihoods wash up on the beach.”
Obama gave them his pledge that the federal government will keep helping until the disaster is ended.
During a visit Friday to Louisiana, he toured a beach where tar balls are washing ashore and attended a briefing at a Coast Guard station in Grand Isle, a small barrier island town south of New Orleans.
Obama said that Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, who is leading the federal response, will get all the help he needs.
