ON THE GULF OF MEXICO — Ships stationed over BP’s crippled well in the Gulf of Mexico were ordered to evacuate Thursday ahead of Tropical Storm Bonnie, and engineers have grown so confident in the cap fixed to the wellhead that they will leave it shut tight while they are gone.
Bonnie, which blossomed over the Bahamas and was to enter the Gulf of Mexico by the weekend, could delay by another 12 days the push to plug the broken well for good by using mud and cement, retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen and BP officials said. Even if it’s not a direct hit, the rough weather will push back efforts to kill the well by at least a week.
“While this is not a hurricane, it’s a storm that will have probably some significant impacts; we’re taking appropriate” precautions, Allen said in Mobile, Ala.
Allen issued the order Thursday night to begin moving dozens of vessels from the spill site, includ-ing the rig that’s drilling the relief tunnel that engineers will use to permanently seal the damaged well. Some vessels could stay on-site, he said, “but we will err on the side of safety.”
“While these actions may delay the effort to kill the well for several days, the safety of the individuals at the well site is our highest concern,” he said in a statement.
A week of steady measurements through cameras and other devices convinced Allen that engineers didn’t need to open vents to relieve pressure on the temporary well cap. Initially, engineers had worried that the cap might cause a buildup of pressure that would create leaks underground and an even bigger blowout. The cap was attached a week ago, and so far any leaks from it have been minor.
Allen said earlier Thursday that evacuating the vessels could leave the wellhead unmonitored for a few days. He said he ordered BP to make sure that the ships carrying the robotic submarines watching the well were the last to leave and the first to return.
Seas already were choppy in the Gulf, with waves up to 5 feet rocking boats as crews prepared to leave, and more of the smaller boats involved in the coastal cleanup were called into port, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Paul Zukunft said.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said he expects local leaders in coastal parishes to call for evacuation of lowlying areas as early as this morning.
With the deep-sea leak now sealed for a week, areas of heavy oil are shrinking and waters around the well are turning a welcome shade of blue. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that it was reopening to commercial and recreational fishing more than 26,000 square miles of the Gulf, or a third of the overall area that has been closed.
Still, Allen said “hundreds of thousands of patches of oil” are still drifting around the Gulf and that the looming storm could further disperse them or drive them into fragile marsh areas.
Scientists say even a severe storm shouldn’t affect the well cap, nearly a mile beneath the ocean surface 40 miles from the Louisiana coast.
“Assuming all lines are disconnected from the surface, there should be no effect on the wellhead by a passing surface storm,” said Paul Bommer, professor of petroleum engineering at the University of Texas at Austin.
Charles Harwell, a BP contractor monitoring the cap, was also confident.
“That cap was specially made, it’s on tight, we’ve been looking at the progress, and it’s all good,” he said after his ship returned to Port Fourchon, La.
Before the cap was attached and closed a week ago, the broken well spewed from 2.2 million to 4.4 million barrels of crude into the Gulf. A barrel equals 42 gallons.
The leak began after the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig exploded April 20, killing 11 workers.
Work on plugging the well came to a standstill Wednesday, just days before authorities had hoped to complete the relief shaft.
Allen said Thursday that he has told BP to go ahead with preparations on a second measure to be used in conjunction with the relief well. The measure is called a static kill and would pump mud and cement into the damaged well from the top, a move that he said would increase the relief well’s chances for success. BP will have to get final approval from Allen before starting the procedure.
TESTIMONY ON SAFETY
A BP well-team leader on the Deepwater Horizion testified Thursday that cost savings didn’t eclipse safety in operational decisions on the ill-fated oil rig.
“When it comes to safety, never,” John Guide told a federal panel investigating the April 20 explosion.
Guide said he believed that BP properly managed risk. He said well-team leaders, contractors and representatives of rig owner Transocean Ltd. met regularly to discuss safety.
He testified that safety protocols were set by Transocean. Anyone on the rig had the right to stop work if they detected a safety problem, he said.
Earlier Thursday, Natalie Roshto, widow of Transocean floor hand Shane Roshto, who died in the blast, said that before her husband reported for his fateful three-week shift on the rig, “he felt like he was going back to problems.”
“From Day One, he deemed this the ‘well from hell,’” she said. “He said Mother Nature didn’t want us drilling here.”
Roshto said the project seemed to have “just a bit more high pressure” because it was behind schedule.
The Coast Guard and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement will complete the latest in a series of hearings today. The panel is to resume hearings Aug. 23-27 in Houston.
‘BLANKET MORATORIUM’
Allegations that scientists’ views were improperly used to justify a federal moratorium on deep-water drilling are being investigated, the Interior Department’s top watchdog says.
House Republicans who had sought the investigation released a letter Thursday from acting Inspector General Mary Kendall confirming the probe.
Scientists who consulted with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar for a report on drilling safety this spring said the department falsely implied that they had agreed to a “blanket moratorium.” The scientists said the drilling moratorium went too far and warned that it may have a lasting impact on the nation’s economy.
The Interior Department’s May 27 report, which called for the moratorium, said its recommendations had been “peer-reviewed” by seven experts identified by the National Academy of Engineering.
Interior spokesman Kendra Barkoff said the experts were not asked to review or comment on the decision to implement the moratorium. They were asked only to review the 22 safety recommendations contained in the report on a technical basis, and they performed that task, she said.
The department has said previously that by listing the experts who had peer-reviewed those recommendations, it did not mean to imply that those experts also agreed with the moratorium.
OBAMAS’ VACATION
President Barack Obama is taking his own advice and taking his family to the Gulf Coast on vacation next month, something he and first lady Michelle Obama have been urging others to do to help the area’s suffering economy.
The White House said the Obamas will visit an undisclosed section of Florida’s coast the weekend of Aug. 14.
Obama has made four trips to the Gulf, including an overnight stay, since the underwater well exploded in April and began bushing oil. The first lady was scheduled to make her second visit to the area today.
Information for this article was contributed by Harry R. Weber, David Dishneau, Colleen Long, Michael Kunzelman, Melissa Nelson, Alan Sayre, Frederic J. Frommer and Darlene Superville of The Associated Press, by Marc Kaufman of The Washington Post and by Julie Cart, Rong-Gong Lin II, Bettina Boxall and Jill Leovy of the Los Angeles Times.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 07/23/2010