BP PLC (BP) said it continued to increase the rate of oil it collected from the mile-deep leak in theGulf of Mexicoon Sunday, bringing up 11,100 barrels of crude to a ship on the surface.
BP PLC (BP) said it continued to increase the rate of oil it collected from the mile-deep leak in the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday, bringing up 11,100 barrels of crude to a ship on the surface.

The company on Saturday had funneled up 10,500 barrels, which was well up from the just over 6,000 barrels it managed to collect the previous day. The relative success of the containment capping procedure follows a string of failures to reduce the amount of oil that has been gushing into the Gulf for more than six weeks.

In an update on its website, the London-based oil company also said it flared off 22 million cubic feet of gas that had been brought up to a ship on the surface, Transocean Ltd.'s (RIG) Discoverer Enterprise. That ship and the containment system in place now can process 15,000 barrels of oil a day, and the vessel can hold up to 137,000 barrels, BP has said.

"Optimization continues and improvement in oil collection is expected over the next few days," the London-based company said in its website update. This "optimization" consists of slowly closing vents on top of the containment cap that was placed over the leaking well late Thursday. Although these vents allow oil and gas to continue to escape into the waters of the Gulf, they are designed to prevent the formation of ice-like crystals called natural-gas hydrates. A build-up of these hydrates, which form when frigid seawater combines with natural gas molecules, derailed an earlier attempt to contain the leak.

BP is also working on a second stage to the current containment effort, which will employ the same gear used in the failed "top kill" attempt to plug the well to bring additional oil and gas to a second ship on the surface. BP said it's aiming to have this operation online by mid-June.

All of these efforts to cap the leak are seen as stop-gap measures to cut the flow of oil until two relief wells are completed in August, at the earliest.

Διαβάστε ακόμα