BP uses robots to try to stop major oil spill
Source: Agencies |
May 15, 2010, Saturday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
Undersea robots were trying to thread a small tube into the jagged pipe that is pouring oil into the Gulf of Mexico yesterday in BP's latest attempt to cut down on the spill from a blown-out well that has pumped out more than 15 million liters of crude.
The company was trying to move the 15-centimeter tube into the leaking 53-centimeter pipe, known as the riser. The smaller tube will be surrounded by a stopper to keep oil from leaking into the sea. BP said it hopes to know later in the day if the tube works and can siphon the oil to a tanker at the surface.
Since the April 20 drilling rig explosion set off the catastrophic spill, BP PLC has tried several ideas to plug the leak that is spewing at least 210,000 gallons of oil into the Gulf a day. The size of the undulating spill was about 9,500 square kilometers, said Hans Graber, director of the University of Miami's Center for Southeastern Tropical Advanced Remote Sensing.
In the fateful hours before the Deepwater Horizon exploded about 80 kilometers off the Louisiana shore, a safety test was supposedly performed to detect if explosive gas was leaking from the mile-deep well.
While some data were being transmitted to shore for safekeeping right up until the blast, officials from Transocean, the rig owner, told Congress that the last seven hours of its information are missing and that all written logs were lost in the explosion. Earlier tests that suggested explosive gas was leaking were preserved.
The gap poses a mystery for investigators: What decisions were made - and what warnings might have been ignored?
A likely blowout scenario suggests there were both crew mistakes and equipment breakdowns at key points on the day of the explosion.
The company was trying to move the 15-centimeter tube into the leaking 53-centimeter pipe, known as the riser. The smaller tube will be surrounded by a stopper to keep oil from leaking into the sea. BP said it hopes to know later in the day if the tube works and can siphon the oil to a tanker at the surface.
Since the April 20 drilling rig explosion set off the catastrophic spill, BP PLC has tried several ideas to plug the leak that is spewing at least 210,000 gallons of oil into the Gulf a day. The size of the undulating spill was about 9,500 square kilometers, said Hans Graber, director of the University of Miami's Center for Southeastern Tropical Advanced Remote Sensing.
In the fateful hours before the Deepwater Horizon exploded about 80 kilometers off the Louisiana shore, a safety test was supposedly performed to detect if explosive gas was leaking from the mile-deep well.
While some data were being transmitted to shore for safekeeping right up until the blast, officials from Transocean, the rig owner, told Congress that the last seven hours of its information are missing and that all written logs were lost in the explosion. Earlier tests that suggested explosive gas was leaking were preserved.
The gap poses a mystery for investigators: What decisions were made - and what warnings might have been ignored?
A likely blowout scenario suggests there were both crew mistakes and equipment breakdowns at key points on the day of the explosion.
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