NEW ORLEANS — Workers cleaning up the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico braced themselves Monday for fallout from Tropical Storm Alex.
While the storm is on a path that could largely keep it away from BP’s spewing well, it might still stir up heavy winds, rain and choppy seas that drive the oil deeper inland and bring much of the cleanup to a standstill.
By midweek, boats skimming oil sludge from the water may have to return to port for their own safety, and many of the floating oil-containment booms in the storm’s path might have to be pulled out of the water before they get tossed around.
The upside is that the storm could stay far enough away that BP will not have to abandon its efforts to capture much of the crude spouting from the sea floor. The containment system now in place is capturing nearly 1 million gallons a day from the well, which is spewing as much as 2.5 million gallons each day, according to the government’s worst-case estimate.
If the equipment had to be removed because of a storm, oil would gush full force into the ocean again.
The storm is not expected to interrupt BP’s drilling of a relief well, considered the best hope of plugging the leak.
“We are watching very, very closely,” said Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the government’s point man on the crisis. “As it stands right now, absent the intervention of a hurricane, we’re still looking at mid-August” for completing the relief well.
Still, Alex — expected to reach hurricane force by the time it reaches land near the Mexico-Texas border, possibly Thursday — is giving new urgency to BP’s efforts to make its operations at the well as hurricane-resistant as possible.
The company said it hopes to install a new oil-capturing system by next week that would allow BP to disconnect the equipment faster if a hurricane threatens and to hook it back up quickly after the storm passes.
Alex was swirling through the gulf with winds of 60 mph. It was expected to become a hurricane today, and winds could reach 120 mph by Wednesday.
While the storm center wasn’t expected to approach the site of the spill, Stacy Stewart, a senior hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Center, said Alex’s winds could push oil farther inland.
Crews also are expecting up to 12-foot waves at the site of the gusher 50 miles off Louisiana, Allen said. He said that is not enough to stop the tanker sucking up large quantities of oil through the cap on the well or a second vessel that is burning off hundreds of thousands of gallons at the surface.
