ROBERT, La. — It will be at least Tuesday before engineers can shoot mud into a blown-out well at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, BP said Friday in yet another delay in the month-long effort to stop the oil that is now washing into wetlands and onto at least one public beach.
A so-called top kill has been tried on land but never 5,000 feet underwater. Scientists and engineers have spent the past week preparing and taking measurements to make sure it will stop the oil that has been spewing into the sea for a month. They originally hoped to try it as early as this weekend.
BP spokesman Tom Mueller said there was no snag in the preparations but that the company must get equipment in place and finish tests before the procedure can begin. BP has three deep-water rigs and other equipment near the blown-out well.
Crews will shoot heavy mud into a crippled piece of equipment atop the well, which started spewing after the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon exploded April 20 off the coast of Louisiana, killing 11 workers. Then engineers will direct cement at the well to permanently stop the oil.
BP PLC, which was leasing the rig and is responsible for the cleanup, has failed several times to halt the oil.
Chief operating officer Doug Suttles said Friday that a mile-long tube inserted into the leaking pipe is sucking about 92,400 gallons of oil a day to the surface, a figure much lower than the 210,000 gallons a day the company said the tube was sucking up Thursday. Suttles said the higher number is the most the tube has been sucking up at any one time, while the lower number is the average.
Even under the most conservative estimate, about 6 million gallons have leaked so far, more than half the amount spilled by the Exxon Valdez in 1989.
Anger has grown as oil has started washing into delicate coastal wetlands in Louisiana.
In Grand Isle, south of New Orleans, officials were forced to close a public beach as globs of oil that resembled melted chocolate washed up.
“It’s difficult to clean up when you haven’t stopped the source,” said Chris Roberts, a councilman for Jefferson Parish, which stretches from the New Orleans metropolitan area to the coast.
Al Lewis Maybe BP stands for “bumbling professor.”
