Asia-Pacific

BP may switch tactic to plug oil well

(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-05-30 08:44

NEW ORLEANS/VENICE, La - BP was weighing whether to stick with the tricky "top kill" maneuver or try something else to plug the gushing well that has caused the worst oil spill in US history, its chief operating officer said on Saturday.

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"I don't think the amount of oil coming out has changed," Doug Suttles, the London-based oil giant's chief operating officer, acknowledged as oil spewed into the Gulf of Mexico for the 40th day.

The catastrophe has cost BP its reputation and $940 million so far and left President Barack Obama struggling to persuade beleaguered Louisiana residents that his administration can handle the crisis. The plodding clean-up effort has sickened workers and left residents frustrated and angry.

The top kill maneuver started on Wednesday and involves pumping heavy fluids and other material into the well shaft to stifle the flow, then sealing it with cement. BP initially said it would take 24 to 48 hours to know if it would work, but Suttles sounded less than confident on Saturday.

"What we need to know is, is it going to be successful, and if we think it will, we'll continue. If we think it won't it's time to move on to the next," Suttles said.

BP's next step would be to slice off the leaking pipe atop a failed blowout preventer a mile (1.6 km) beneath the sea and place a cap and seal over the opening. Another pipe would be attached to carry the oil up to a ship on the surface.

The Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20, killing 11 workers and unleashing an underwater torrent of oil that the government estimated at 12,000 to 19,000 barrels (504,000 to 798,000 gallons/1.9 million to 3 million liters) a day.

Obama faced criticism that he responded too slowly and assured Louisianians during a visit on Friday that they "will not be left behind" and that the "buck stops" with him.BP to get it right and put his best scientists in the room. The government has no deep-sea oil technology of its own.

That fact is not lost on the people of Louisiana's coast, a hub of the US oil industry and now the site of the country's largest oil spill which surpassed the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaskan waters.

WORKERS' HEALTH THREATENED

But that doesn't mean the public will forgive the first-term president, who is anxious to avoid comparisons to former President George W. Bush after his government's much-criticized response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Polls show that Americans are losing faith in the Obama administration's response to the spill as oil seeps farther into fragile marshlands and shuts down a good chunk of the lucrative fishing industry.

Still, BP gets worse marks for the lack of proper clean-up of the Louisiana coastline and the oil in the gulf.

Federal regulators complained in an internal memo that BP had not adequately trained or equipped the 22,000 workers cleaning up the spill, some of whom have been sickened by the oil. The memo to Thad Allen, the Coast Guard admiral overseeing the government response, was obtained by McClatchy newspapers.

"These are not isolated problems," David Michaels, the assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health, wrote in the memo. "They appear to be indicative of a general systemic failure on BP's part, to ensure the safety and health of those responding to this disaster."

Suttles said illness was not widespread among the workers but said, "It's clear that people have gotten sick and we need to figure out what we need to do to change that."

In Grand Isle, 17-year old Hanna Lemoie posted a sign she painted that read "BP ... we want our beach back."

"The beach, the waves had like orange oil coming in and it made me mad because there was nobody cleaning it up and I felt helpless," Lemoie said.

Recreational boater Robert Ashabranner abandoned his plan to permanently dock in Venice, Louisiana, known as Tuna Town for its world-class tuna fishing.

"They have closed off what I enjoy doing which is fishing offshore. So, we are having to relocate to Texas to have fun," Ashabranner said as he fueled his boat at the Venice Marina.

The frustration, anger and delays have inspired revenge fantasies.

A Louisiana resident suggested in a letter to the Times Picayune newspaper that BP executives be tarred in spilled oil, rolled in blackened pelican feathers and sent to the guillotine so their severed heads could be used in a "junk shot" to clog the well.

The creators of the "B-Pee Day" Facebook page urged readers to urinate on BP gas stations, declaring "They leaked on us, it's time to take a leak on them."