Relief-Well Plan Was Used in Worst Blowout Ever, Took 9 Months

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April 30, 2010, 3:58 PM EDT

By Leela Landress

April 30 (Bloomberg) -- The worst blowout on record took about nine months to cap using two relief wells, the same technique BP Plc has said it will deploy to stem gushing crude from the Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico.

In 1979, Ixtoc-1, an exploratory well owned by Petroleos Mexicanos in 150 feet of water, blew out 600 miles (966 kilometers) south of Texas in Mexico’s Bay of Campeche and spilled an estimated 3.3 million barrels into the Gulf, according to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the American Petroleum Institute.

Oil from the BP well, which blew out April 20, is escaping at a rate of about 5,000 barrels a day, five times faster than previously estimated, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. The Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank last week, killing 11 crew members, while drilling in 5,000 feet of water.

“There is likely going to be more oil coming ashore than Ixtoc,” Paul Boehm, who was an oceanography contractor with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration at the time of the 1979 spill, said today in a phone interview. “This spill has challenges that nobody has faced before.”

The oil and natural gas blowing out of Ixtoc-1 ignited, causing the platform to catch fire, according to NOAA. The platform collapsed into the wellhead area, hindering immediate attempts to control the blowout, which spilled 10,000 to 30,000 barrels of oil a day.

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