WASHINGTON—U.S. President Barack Obama, responding to the failure of BP's latest attempt to plug a mile-deep oil and natural gas leak in the Gulf of Mexico, on Saturday expressed outrage at the duration of the spill and said that a new method the company will attempt will be "difficult and take several days."
"Every day that this leak continues is an assault on the people of the Gulf Coast region, their livelihoods, and the natural bounty that belongs to all of us," Obama said in a statement. "It is as enraging as it is heartbreaking, and we will not relent until this leak is contained, until the waters and shores are cleaned up, and until the people unjustly victimized by this manmade disaster are made whole."
Late Saturday, BP abandoned its effort to plug a mile-deep oil and natural gas leak in the Gulf of Mexico by injecting thousands of barrels of heavy drilling fluid and said it would shift to a new method. The abandoned procedure, known as a top kill, did not stop the flow of hydrocarbons into the ocean.
Engineers and experts "had hoped that the top kill approach attempted this week would halt the flow of oil and gas currently escaping from the seafloor," Obama said. "But while we initially received optimistic reports about the procedure, it is now clear that it has not worked."
Engineers will now try to contain the flow of oil from the leak with a so-called lower marine riser package cap. This operation would involve removing a broken drilling pipe, or riser, that lies atop the failed blowout preventer and cap the valve with a siphon that will take the oil to the surface. BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said the LMRP-cap procedure would take four to seven days. The LMRP cap is a newly made version of a type of device referred to as a top hat.
"This approach is not without risk and has never been attempted before at this depth," Obama said. "That is why it was not activated until other methods had been exhausted."
U.S. Interior Deputy Secretary David Hayes told a House panel last week that U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu and directors of the Energy Department's national labs had been working with BP on a backup plan in case the "top kill" failed.
The failed top-kill effort followed several frustrated attempts to shut off the well by activating a last-resort device known as a blowout preventer. The company later tried installing containment domes above the leaking well, but that wasn't successful.
Officials estimate the broken well is releasing between 12,000 and 19,000 barrels a day into the Gulf. The spill, which originated more than a month ago, when Transocean Ltd.'s Deepwater Horizon rig blew up and sank, has officially become the worst in U.S. history, surpassing the 1989 Exxon-Valdez disaster.
Posted By: Siebra Muhammad
Saturday, May 29th 2010 at 8:24PM
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