Top kill strategy fails to stop oil

KENNER, La. – BP acknowledged the failure Saturday of its “top kill” operation to tamp down oil gushing from its blown-out well and launched a new interim effort to contain the flow.

“After three full days, we have been unable to overcome the flow from the well, so we now believe it is time to move on to another option,” BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said at a news conference with federal officials in Robert, La.

In a surprisingly somber statement from the company that has sought to reassure the public over the last 40 days, Suttles acknowledged: “This scares everybody – the fact that we cannot make this well stop flowing.”

President Barack Obama’s reaction was measured. “It is also important to note that while we were hopeful that the top kill would succeed,” he said, “we were also mindful that there was a significant chance it would not. And we will continue to pursue any and all responsible means of stopping this leak until the completion of the two relief wells currently being drilled.

“As I said yesterday, every day that this leak continues is an assault on the people of the Gulf Coast region, their livelihoods and the natural bounty that belongs to all of us,” said Obama, who visited the region Friday. “It is as enraging as it is heartbreaking, and we will not relent until this leak is contained, until the waters and shores are cleaned up and until the people unjustly victimized by this man-made disaster are made whole.”

The top kill operation had injected a high-pressure stream of heavy drilling fluid into a failed blowout preventer in hopes of overcoming the upward force of the oil so it could plug the well with cement.

In the new strategy, BP engineers would first sever the crumpled riser pipe, then attach a cap over the lower-marine riser package that sits atop the blowout preventer. A new pipe would direct the oil to a surface ship. It will take at least four days to install, Suttles said, and could capture “a great majority” of the oil spewing from the well.

Oil is now flowing from the crippled well and would continue until the maneuver is finished, Suttles said. Last week, a government panel estimated the flow of oil at 504,000 to 798,000 gallons a day.

Suttles cautioned that the new maneuver would be “a very complex operation.” As with earlier efforts, it has never been tried at 5,000 feet below sea level using robotic submarines.

In the end, only a relief well, expected to be finished by early August, would finally be able to kill the well, Suttles said.

One of two such wells being slant-drilled is at 12,900 feet below the ocean surface, but it must reach 18,000 feet. “The farther we go, the slower it gets,” he said, adding, “we are ahead of our plan right now.”

The collapse of BP’s top kill maneuver came as public frustration mounted over what the government now calculates to be the biggest oil spill in the nation’s history.

As much as 29 million gallons of oil have been spilled into the Gulf since the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, compared with 11 million gallons leaked into Alaska’s Prince William Sound by the Exxon Valdez tanker in 1989.

BP, the owner of the well, says it will pay “all legitimate claims” from the accident, which Obama on Friday called “a man-made catastrophe that is still evolving.”

In the news conference, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry told reporters, “Obviously we’re very disappointed in today’s announcement … but we want to assure you, we’ve had a very, very aggressive response.” She echoed Obama’s remarks during his visit to Louisiana, saying, “There’s no silver bullet to stop this leak.”

Some engineers applauded the company’s decision to move on.

Iraj Ershaghi, a petroleum engineering professor at the University of Southern California, warned that continuing to inject mud into the well at extreme pressure could have broken pipes, or casings, deep in the well, causing it to collapse. Such a scenario could leave a ragged crater that could be difficult, if not impossible, to plug by any means, he said.

Ershaghi said the new strategy was a well-tested method of controlling wells and was BP’s best chance of success now.