May 10, 2010 4:59 PM
- Text
Gulf Oil Spill Grows to 3.5M Gallons
(CBS/AP)
Last Updated 4:59 p.m. ET
A growing collection of crippled equipment littered the ocean floor Sunday near a ruptured oil well gushing crude into the Gulf of Mexico, the remnants of a massive rig that exploded weeks ago and the failed efforts since to cap the leak.
On the surface, nearly a mile up, a fleet of ships maneuvered to deploy the latest stopgap plans hatched by BP engineers desperate to keep the Deepwater Horizon disaster from becoming the nation's worst spill.
An estimated 3.5 million gallons has risen from the depths since the April 20 explosion that killed 11, a pace that would surpass the total spilled in the Exxon Valdez disaster by Father's Day.
A BP PLC official said that the company is considering more options to stop the flow of oil spewing at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.
Complete Coverage: Disaster in the Gulf
Chief operating officer Doug Suttles said Sunday that BP is thinking about putting a smaller containment dome over the massive leak after a four-story, 100-ton box became clogged with icelike crystals a day earlier.
BP believes a smaller dome would be less vulnerable because it would contain less water.
The company is also now debating whether it should cut the riser pipe undersea and use larger piping to bring the gushing oil to a drill ship on the surface.
Suttles says cutting the pipe is tough, and considered the less desirable option.
A day after icelike crystals clogged a four-story box that workers had lowered atop the main leak, crews using remote-controlled submarines hauled the specially-built structure more than a quarter-mile away and prepared other long-shot methods of stopping the flow.
One technique would use a tube to shoot mud and concrete directly into the well's blowout preventer, a process that could take two to three weeks. BP PLC spokesman Mark Proegler said no decisions have been made on what step the company will take next.
It could be at least a day before BP can make another attempt at putting a lid on a well spewing at least 200,000 gallons of crude into the Gulf each day.
Waves of dark brown and black sludge crashed into a boat in the area above the leak. The fumes there were so intense that a crewmember of the support ship Joe Griffin and an AP photographer on board had to wear respirators while on deck.
A white cattle egret landed on the ship, brownish-colored stains of oil on its face and along its chest, wings and tail.
Meanwhile, thick blobs of tar washed up on Alabama's white sand beaches, yet another sign the spill was spreading.
It had taken about two weeks to build the box and three days to cart the containment box 50 miles out and slowly lower it to the well a mile below the surface, but the frozen depths were just too much.
"The containment dome that was put over the leak site developed ice crystals," Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen told "Face the Nation" anchor Bob Schiffer.
"The next tactic will be a junk shot," Adm. Allen said. "They'll take a bunch of debris, shredded up tires, golf balls and things like that and under very high pressure shoot it into the preventer itself and see if they can clog it up and stop the leak."
BP officials were not giving up hopes that a containment box — either the one brought there or another one being built — could cover the well. But they said it could be Monday or later before they decide whether to make another attempt to capture the oil and funnel it to a tanker at the surface.
Company and Coast Guard officials had cautioned that icelike hydrates, a slushy mixture of gas and water, would be one of the biggest challenges to the containment box plan. The crystals clogged the opening in the top of the peaked box, BP chief operating officer Doug Suttles said, like sand in a funnel, only upside-down.
The containment box plan, never before tried at such depths, had been designed to siphon up to 85 percent of the leaking oil.
News that the containment box plan, designed to siphon up to 85 percent of the leaking oil, had faltered dampened spirits in Louisiana's coastal communities.
"Everyone was hoping that that would slow it down a bit if not stop it," said Shane Robichaux, of Chauvin, a 39-year-old registered nurse relaxing at his vacation camp in Cocodrie. "I'm sure they'll keep working on it till it gets fixed, one way or another. But we were hopeful that would shut it down."
The original blowout was triggered by a bubble of methane gas that escaped from the well and shot up the drill column, expanding quickly as it burst through several seals and barriers before exploding, according to interviews with rig workers conducted during BP PLC's internal investigation. Deep sea oil drillers often encounter pockets of methane crystals as they dig into the earth.
As the bubble rose, it intensified and grew, breaking through various safety barriers, said Robert Bea, a University of California Berkley engineering professor and oil pipeline expert who detailed the interviews exclusively to an AP reporter.
More Coverage of the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill:
BP Exec: Oil Leak Containment Box "Didn't Work"
AP: Oil Blowout Preventers Known to Fail
BP Probe: Blowout Triggered by Methane Gas
Pelicans' Brief Success Threatened by Oil Spill
A growing collection of crippled equipment littered the ocean floor Sunday near a ruptured oil well gushing crude into the Gulf of Mexico, the remnants of a massive rig that exploded weeks ago and the failed efforts since to cap the leak.
On the surface, nearly a mile up, a fleet of ships maneuvered to deploy the latest stopgap plans hatched by BP engineers desperate to keep the Deepwater Horizon disaster from becoming the nation's worst spill.
An estimated 3.5 million gallons has risen from the depths since the April 20 explosion that killed 11, a pace that would surpass the total spilled in the Exxon Valdez disaster by Father's Day.
A BP PLC official said that the company is considering more options to stop the flow of oil spewing at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.
Complete Coverage: Disaster in the Gulf
Chief operating officer Doug Suttles said Sunday that BP is thinking about putting a smaller containment dome over the massive leak after a four-story, 100-ton box became clogged with icelike crystals a day earlier.
BP believes a smaller dome would be less vulnerable because it would contain less water.
The company is also now debating whether it should cut the riser pipe undersea and use larger piping to bring the gushing oil to a drill ship on the surface.
Suttles says cutting the pipe is tough, and considered the less desirable option.
A day after icelike crystals clogged a four-story box that workers had lowered atop the main leak, crews using remote-controlled submarines hauled the specially-built structure more than a quarter-mile away and prepared other long-shot methods of stopping the flow.
One technique would use a tube to shoot mud and concrete directly into the well's blowout preventer, a process that could take two to three weeks. BP PLC spokesman Mark Proegler said no decisions have been made on what step the company will take next.
It could be at least a day before BP can make another attempt at putting a lid on a well spewing at least 200,000 gallons of crude into the Gulf each day.
Waves of dark brown and black sludge crashed into a boat in the area above the leak. The fumes there were so intense that a crewmember of the support ship Joe Griffin and an AP photographer on board had to wear respirators while on deck.
A white cattle egret landed on the ship, brownish-colored stains of oil on its face and along its chest, wings and tail.
Meanwhile, thick blobs of tar washed up on Alabama's white sand beaches, yet another sign the spill was spreading.
It had taken about two weeks to build the box and three days to cart the containment box 50 miles out and slowly lower it to the well a mile below the surface, but the frozen depths were just too much.
"The containment dome that was put over the leak site developed ice crystals," Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen told "Face the Nation" anchor Bob Schiffer.
"The next tactic will be a junk shot," Adm. Allen said. "They'll take a bunch of debris, shredded up tires, golf balls and things like that and under very high pressure shoot it into the preventer itself and see if they can clog it up and stop the leak."
BP officials were not giving up hopes that a containment box — either the one brought there or another one being built — could cover the well. But they said it could be Monday or later before they decide whether to make another attempt to capture the oil and funnel it to a tanker at the surface.
Company and Coast Guard officials had cautioned that icelike hydrates, a slushy mixture of gas and water, would be one of the biggest challenges to the containment box plan. The crystals clogged the opening in the top of the peaked box, BP chief operating officer Doug Suttles said, like sand in a funnel, only upside-down.
The containment box plan, never before tried at such depths, had been designed to siphon up to 85 percent of the leaking oil.
News that the containment box plan, designed to siphon up to 85 percent of the leaking oil, had faltered dampened spirits in Louisiana's coastal communities.
"Everyone was hoping that that would slow it down a bit if not stop it," said Shane Robichaux, of Chauvin, a 39-year-old registered nurse relaxing at his vacation camp in Cocodrie. "I'm sure they'll keep working on it till it gets fixed, one way or another. But we were hopeful that would shut it down."
The original blowout was triggered by a bubble of methane gas that escaped from the well and shot up the drill column, expanding quickly as it burst through several seals and barriers before exploding, according to interviews with rig workers conducted during BP PLC's internal investigation. Deep sea oil drillers often encounter pockets of methane crystals as they dig into the earth.
As the bubble rose, it intensified and grew, breaking through various safety barriers, said Robert Bea, a University of California Berkley engineering professor and oil pipeline expert who detailed the interviews exclusively to an AP reporter.
More Coverage of the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill:
BP Exec: Oil Leak Containment Box "Didn't Work"
AP: Oil Blowout Preventers Known to Fail
BP Probe: Blowout Triggered by Methane Gas
Pelicans' Brief Success Threatened by Oil Spill
Latest Now in National
- 2 charged in death of Ala girl forced to run
- 2 charged in death of Ala girl forced to run
- Farmers furious after Iraq stops buying US rice
- White faces sentencing after 6 felony convictions
- 'Caylee' legislation stalls in Iowa, other states
- Texas torture victim calls survival 'miracle'
- Fitness program for mentally ill expands in NH
- Newark mayor seeks probe of NYPD Muslim spying
- Feds crack down on rhino horn smuggling ring
- Washington girl critical after school shooting
- Feds crack down on rhino horn smuggling ring
- Feds crack down on rhino horn smuggling ring
- Union sues to block Indiana right-to-work law
- Triplet in NJ school bus crash out of hospital
- Charles Wells, Ky labor leader, dies in house fire
- Mayor: 2 shot at Conn. hospital, suspect arrested
- Police: Girl forced to run 3 hours dies; 2 charged
Latest CBS News Headlines
on Facebook
on CBS News
- Greek Parliament to vote on debt writedown deal
- Greek Parliament to vote on debt writedown deal
- 2 charged in death of Ala girl forced to run
- 2 charged in death of Ala girl forced to run
on Facebook
- Six decades of Oscar fashion
- Christie: Buffett should "write a check and shut up"
- "Biggest Loser" contestants reportedly threaten to quit
- Is world's shortest man this 22-inch-tall Nepalese 72-year-old?
on CBS News
