BP is making progress on a delicate undersea operation to install a new containment cap on its blown-out well, and plans to activate a new oil-siphoning system later today, a company executive said.
"We're pleased with our progress," BP senior vice president Kent Wells told reporters on a conference call, reiterating that it will take four to seven days for undersea robots operating a mile below the sea surface to install the new containment system.
BP has removed a device capturing oil from its leaking well in the Gulf of Mexico as it prepares to install a more efficient collection system.
The company plans to have a new seal on the gushing well sometime within the next week. BP's target is to collect as much as 80,000 barrels a day, Mr Wells said yesterday.
BP has captured about 734,000 barrels of the estimated 2.9 million to 5 million barrels that have leaked since April, the company said.
The process of switching caps temporarily allows the oil to flow without restriction from the seafloor. BP is using surface ships to capture as much as possible, a company spokesman said.
The system to be installed includes the Helix Producer I surface vessel and the so-called capping stack containment mechanisms. The Helix, capable of collecting 25,000 barrels of oil a day, may start capturing oil today, Mr Wells said. Yesterday, underwater robots began yesterday unscrewing six bolts holding the stump of pipe left after a robot sheared away most of it June 3rd. New equipment will be attached.
Uncapping the well has released a torrent of oil that will spew unrestrained into the Gulf for four to seven days - the time BP says it will take to put in place a bigger cap and seal. Officials say the new cap would capture all the oil leaking from the well and funnel it 1.6 km) upward to vessels on the water's surface.
The new solution, 82 days into the worst oil spill in US history, would not allow crude to billow out the bottom and the top, as the current cap does, said Mr Wells.
Retired Coast Guard admiral Thad Allen, who is overseeing the US response to the spill, had said the cap switch could be finished by late today or Monday. BP's plan, which Mr Allen approved late Friday, showed a four- to seven-day process.
Agencies