BP oil relief well maybe last chance of stopping Gulf spill

6 July 2010 6 July 2010

BonTrade

The latest attempt to stop the Gulf oil spill in the form of BP’s oil relief well maybe the last and best chance to avert a more serious, and truely unthinkable crisis in the Gulf of Mexico.

As engineers bore deeper into the seafloor toward the source of the oil still spewing into the Gulf, BP is growing more confident that the relief well it expects to complete in August, if not before, will succeed.

“There is a possibility that the first relief well could be completed by the end of July” spokesman Mark Proegler said by telephone from New Orleans today. “It’s more likely that it would be some time in August.”

BP’s Chief Executive Tony Hayward said last month that the reservoir of oil is believed to hold about 2.1 billion gallons of oil, hence if the oil spill is never plugged, it could mean another two years of oil spilling based on the current flow rate until the reservoir is drained.

“You’re going 18,000 feet to hit a dinner plate. My guess is two or three times is more of a likelihood,” said Bruce Bullock, director of the Maguire Energy Institute at Southern Methodist University.

“It’s very unpredictable because the current condition of the well down there is unknown,” said Satish Nagarajaiah, a Rice University engineering professor who focuses on offshore structures.

Thad Allen, the US National Incident Commander, has said that plugging the Macondo well might take two to five days after the relief well is drilled.

Fighting the force of the natural gas coming up through the oil well, contending with pressure created by the depth of the water, and potentially struggling with an inadequate containment system may cause the relief well timeline to drag on, according to engineers and analysts tracking BP’s progress.