NEW ORLEANS — The government’s oil-spill chief tried to tamp down fears Tuesday that BP’s capped well is buckling under the pressure, saying that seepage detected along the sea floor less than 2 miles away is coming from an older well no longer in production.
Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen also said at least five leaks have been discovered around the well machinery, but he dismissed them as “very small drips” — “not unlike an oil leak you might have in your car.”
Over the past few days, since a 75-ton cap was placed over the mile-deep well to keep the oil bottled up inside, BP and government engineers have been watching closely to see whether the well would hold tight or show signs of rupturing under the pressure. A rupture could cause a bigger and harder-to-control disaster.
Allen has granted BP repeated 24-hour extensions to keep the cap in place, as long as the company monitors the well scrupulously.
Meanwhile, the endgame in the three-month crisis appeared to be drawing closer, with BP vice president Kent Wells saying the drilling of the relief well — necessary to permanently plug the well — is on track. He said crews hope to drill sideways into the blown-out well and intercept it at the end of this month.
At that point, they will begin the kill procedure — pumping mud and cement into the hole deep underground to seal it once and for all. BP said that stage could take five days to a couple of weeks.
The BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig exploded April 20, killing 11 workers and touching off one of America’s worst environmental crises. The well has spewed between 94 million and 184 million gallons into the gulf. BP said the cost of dealing with the spill has reached nearly $4 billion.
At a hearing in suburban New Orleans on Tuesday, one of the ill-fated rig’s drilling supervisors told Coast Guard investigators that the rig’s crew didn’t stop drilling or properly notify regulators when a hydraulic leak was discovered in a critical safety device weeks before the blast.
Well-site leader Ronald Sepulvado testified that he and others believed the leak wouldn’t prevent the device, called a blowout preventer, from functioning properly.
