Some oil spill events from Sunday, July 18, 2010

Some oil spill events from Sunday, July 18, 2010

A summary of events Sunday, July 18, Day 89 of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill that began with the April 20 explosion and fire on the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon, owned by Transocean Ltd. and leased by BP PLC, which is in charge of cleanup and containment. The blast killed 11 workers. Since then, oil poured into the Gulf from a blown-out undersea well until BP managed to stanch the leak on Thursday — at least temporarily — with a massive, deep-sea cap.

DIFFERING VIEWS

BP and the Obama administration offered significantly differing views Sunday on whether the capped Gulf of Mexico oil well will have to be reopened, a contradiction that may be an effort by the oil giant to avoid blame if crude starts spewing again. Pilloried for nearly three months as it tried repeatedly to stop the leak, BP PLC capped the nearly mile-deep well Thursday and wants to keep it that way. The government’s plan, however, is to eventually pipe oil to the surface, which would ease pressure on the fragile well but would require up to three more days of oil spilling into the Gulf.

SEEP ALLEGED

An administration official familiar with the spill oversight told The Associated Press that a seep and possible methane were found near the busted oil well. The official spoke on condition of anonymity Sunday because an announcement about the next steps had not been made yet. The concern all along — since pressure readings on the cap weren’t as high as expected — was a leak elsewhere in the wellbore, meaning the cap may have to be reopened to prevent the environmental disaster from becoming even worse and harder to fix. The official would not clarify what is seeping near the well, but said BP is not complying with the government’s demand for more monitoring. When asked about the official’s comments, BP spokesman Mark Salt would only say that “we continue to work very closely with all government scientists on this.”

TRIAL RUN

Both Allen and BP have said they don’t know how long the trial run will continue. It was set to end Sunday afternoon, but the deadline — an extension from the original Saturday cutoff — came and went with no word on what’s next. After little activity Sunday, robots near the well cap came to life around the time of the cutoff. It wasn’t clear what they were doing, but bubbles started swirling around as their robotic arms poked at the mechanical cap.

RELIEF WELLS

BP is drilling two relief wells, one of them as a backup. The company said work on the first one was far enough along that officials expect to reach the broken well’s casing, or pipes, deep underground by late this month. Then the job of jamming it with mud and cement could take a few days or a few weeks.

DISSIPATING

Even though it has been only days since the oil was turned off, the naked eye could spot improvements on the water. The crude appeared to be dissipating quickly on the surface of the Gulf around the Deepwater Horizon site. Members of a Coast Guard crew that flew over the wellhead Saturday said far less oil was visible than a day earlier. Only a colorful sheen and a few long streams of rust-colored, weathered oil were apparent in an area covered weeks earlier by huge patches of black crude. Somewhere between 94 million and 184 million gallons have spilled into the Gulf, according to government estimates.

CLAIMS

The federal administrator of a $20 billion Gulf oil spill compensation fund says the wages earned by people working on BP’s cleanup will be deducted from their claims against the company. Kenneth Feinberg told The Associated Press on Sunday the fund is designed to compensate fishermen and others for their lost income. If BP PLC is already paying someone to help skim oil and perform other cleanup work, those wages will be subtracted from the amount they’re eligible to claim from the fund. Feinberg says the rule is “very fair” and shouldn’t eliminate an incentive for boat captains to participate in BP’s vessel of opportunity cleanup program. BP is paying vessel owners between $1,200 and $3,000 a day to help with the cleanup.