Engineering attempt readied to stem US oil spill
The oil spill creeps closer to the Mississippi Delta. Photo: NASA
Today the world seems to be holding it’s breath to see if BP’s latest attempt to contain the oil gushing from the seabed in the Gulf of Mexico will work.
BP will attempt to place a 98 ton steel dome on the seabed over the worst of the leak using robotic submersibles for guidance. The unprecedented effort, if successful, will channel the oil through a funnel to a drill ship on the surface. The company managed to seal the smallest of three leaks yesterday but some 800,000 litres of oil per day is still entering the Gulf.
The cofferdam is being manufactured at a Louisiana yard by contractor Wild Well Control, but though the engineering is simple, the circumstances of placement are challenging, as the leaks lie a mile beneath the surface of murky, oil laden waters in difficult sea conditions.
A fortnight after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded killing 11 workers, the full impact of the disaster is being realized. If estimates are correct, some 2.5 million gallons of crude have streamed into the sea since the BP leased platform burned before sinking on 22 April.
Chemical dispersants are being used on the oil and have ‘significantly’ reduced the amount of oil coming to the surface according to BP. The company has also begun work on a secondary relief well to relieve pressure at the site of the leaks but this could take 90 days to complete and may not prove successful.
Rather than making the expected landfall, the slick has been rotating like a giant roulette wheel just off the coast of Louisiana. But concerns are growing that a ‘loop current’ will take part of it up to the coast of Florida, although it is difficult to calculate were the slick will be washed up due to the inconsistent nature of the weather and winds.
The threat to wildlife and marine based local economies has not been calculated, as the spill threatens spawning and nesting grounds, and may well effect both edible crustaceans as well as fish stocks. There has been a simultaneous withdrawal of support for offshore rigs around the US coast, and interruptions to established drilling operations as a number of safety checks are carried out.
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