More Drilling Planned At Site Of Oil Leak In Gulf (up to three months to drill a relief well)

[Purveyor]

Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS

(04-27) 12:37 PDT New Orleans (AP) --

Crews will begin drilling by Thursday as part of a $100 million effort to take the pressure off of a blown-out well that is spewing 42,000 gallons of crude oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast, BP said Tuesday.

BP was leasing the Deepwater Horizon, the offshore oil rig that exploded last week, triggering the spill. Company spokesman Robert Wine said it will take up to three months to drill a relief well from another rig recently brought to the site where the Deepwater Horizon sank after the blast. Most of the 126 workers on board escaped; 11 are missing and presumed dead. No cause has been determined.

The oil is coming from a pipe rising from the seabed nearly a mile underwater. So far crews using robotic subs have been unable to activate a shutoff device at the head of the well. A kink in the pipe is keeping oil from flowing even more heavily.

If the well cannot be closed, almost 100,000 barrels of oil could spill into the Gulf before the relief well is operating. That's 4.2 million gallons. The worst oil spill in U.S. history was when the Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons in Alaska's Prince William Sound in 1989.

BP said it will drill the relief well even if it is able to shut off the flow of oil.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/04/25/national/a001358D66.DTL

[thereismore]

1. Hurray for BP! Fuckers, all of them. nt

[Xenotime]

2. That's fucked up.. Drilling caused the problem so we gotta drill more?!?!

[Sgent]

3. Its a little weird

but the ground pressure from the oil is what's causing the leak. By drilling another well, they can relieve the pressure and thus stop the leak.

[bergie321]

4. Drill baby drill?

[activa8tr]

5. I'm wondering if the Gulf coast will lose all their beauty with this. Not to mention

the fisheries, shrimp, wildlife loss, which is just as bad.