Cross-posted at Lucy's Revenge
Saturday May 8, 2010--BP officials provided an update on current efforts to stop the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico today. According to the company announcement, the attempts to place the containment dome have so far been unsuccessful.
“As we had expressed numerous times, this particular operation has never been done before at this depth and a significant technical challenge was with hydrate formation,” read the company statement.
The statement described hydrate formation as a chemical process when gas combines with water under certain pressure and temperatures that form as crystals, similar to ice.
The dome was lowered to the sea floor yesterday evening. However, as workers began to place it over the source of the leak, a large volume of hydrates formed inside the top of the dome, requiring it to be moved to the side of the leak point. The dome is currently sitting on the sea bed while technicians evaluate options to deal with the hydrate issue.
The company is also simultaneously investigating other techniques to control the source of flow and ultimately stop the source of flow. These include activities utilizing the existing blowout preventer to stop the flow. Additional data will be gathered to see if these options are viable and that work will continue over the next 48 hours. The relief well drilling continues and is at approximately 9,000 feet below the surface of the water and making progress ahead of plan.
BP officials say the company has also deployed over 130,000 feet of boom on Friday alone; approaching a million feet deployed with over 2.3 million additional feet, either coming from existing stocks in the US and other countries to fight the spread of oil already spreading from the leak site.
“We have oil around Chandelier Island, LA and our cleanup teams are responding,” read the statement.
There were five successful offshore burns Friday, and skimming operations skimmed over 17,500 barrels of an oily water mix.
