NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Engineers began pumping heavy drilling mud
into the blown-out Gulf of Mexico oil well Tuesday in what they
think is their best chance yet to achieve the ultimate goal in a
delicate process — snuffing one of the world’s largest spills for
good.
BP crews began the long-awaited effort dubbed the “static kill”
around 3 p.m. Central time, the British oil giant said. The effort
involves pumping mud and eventually, crews hope, cement from ships
to the well bore a mile below to seal off the source of the
oil.
But the government and oil executives won’t declare victory
until crews also shove mud and cement down an 18,000-foot relief
well later this month to help choke the vast undersea reservoir
that feeds the well. They say that’s the only way to make certain
oil never escapes again.
Tests for the static kill started a couple hours earlier as
crews probed the broken well bore with an oil-like liquid to
determine whether there were any obstructions in the well and to
assess the pressure of the bore and the pump rates it could
withstand.
The test “went exactly as we could have expected,” but it’s too
early to tell whether the static kill is successful, said BP Senior
Vice President Kent Wells.
“We’re so early in the process, there’s no way for me to give
you any early indication,” Wells said, adding: “We’re extremely
focused on this point on making sure we execute the static kill as
best we can.”
Crews should know within hours whether the mud is pushing down
the oil as envisioned. But engineers still won’t know for more than
a week whether the attempt achieved its goal because they have to
wait for completion of the relief well.
“This is a really positive step forward,” retired Coast Guard
Adm. Thad Allen said earlier, calling it “good news in a time where
that hasn’t been very much good news, but it shouldn’t be a cause
for premature celebration.”
Company officials earlier said the static kill alone — which
involves slowly pumping the mud down lines running from ships a
mile above — might be enough to plug the oil leak.
But the only surefire way to make certain the well is
permanently plugged is to also fill it with mud and cement via the
relief well in a so-called “bottom kill,” said Allen, the
government’s point man on the spill response. The relief well is
set for completion as early as Aug. 11.
The static kill could take days to complete, mostly because it
involves slow pumping of mud, Allen said.
The effort is meant as insurance for the crews that have spent
months fighting the spill. The only thing that had been keeping the
oil from blowing into the Gulf was an experimental cap that has
held for more than two weeks but was never meant to be
permanent.
Allen noted that peak hurricane season is just around the corner
and that a storm could disrupt progress. Tropical Storm Colin
formed far out in the Atlantic on Tuesday, but early forecasts put
it on a track off the East Coast rather than the Gulf.
The company began drilling a primary relief well May 2, 12 days
after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and killed 11 workers, and
a second backup well May 16. The first well is now only about 100
feet from the target.
A federal task force said Monday that about 172 million gallons
of oil made it into the Gulf between April and July 15, when the
temporary cap contained all the oil.
The task force said about 206 million gallons actually gushed
out of the well, but a fleet of boats and other efforts were able
to contain more than 33 million. The 172 million gallons is on the
high end of recent estimates that anywhere from 92 million to 184
million gallons had gushed into the sea.
Judging by the latest estimate, BP could be fined up to $5.4
billion under the Clean Water Act, or as much as $21 billion if it
is found to have committed gross negligence or willful
misconduct.
The high-end fine would drop to around $17.6 billion if the
government credits BP for the oil it has recovered, while the
low-end fine would be around $4.5 billion.
Any fines would be on top of the compensation BP has agreed to
pay to thousands of people harmed by the spill. Under pressure from
the White House, the company set up a $20 billion escrow fund to
pay all claims, including environmental damages and state and local
response costs.
BP and federal officials have managed to contain large parts of
the spill through skimmers, boom and chemical dispersants meant to
break up the oil.
Federal regulators have come under fire from critics who say
that BP was allowed to use excessive amounts of the dispersants,
but government officials counter that they have helped dramatically
cut the use of the chemicals since late May.
Michael Bromwich, who as director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy
Management, Regulation and Enforcement is the nation’s top drilling
regulator said Tuesday that the Obama administration hopes to lift
a freeze on deep-water drilling before it is scheduled to expire
Nov. 30.
And as businesses along the coast continued to clamor for relief
from losses caused by the spill, BP said it created a special team
to reduce paperwork and speed up payments to “businesspeople who
are suffering.”
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Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Ramit
Plushnick-Masti in Houston, Jeffrey Collins and Harry R. Weber in
New Orleans, and Matthew Daly in Washington.
