BP says new oil slick comes from abandoned equipment
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E-mail Xinhua, October 19, 2012
British oil giant BP said Thursday that a sheen recently spotted near the site of the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill appears to be leaking from a piece of discarded equipment, and not from the blown-out Macondo well or the relief well that eventually sealed it. The equipment, an 86-ton steel container called a cofferdam, was used in the early stages of the response to trap oil and methane hydrates from a leaking drill pipe in an attempt to funnel it to the surface, according to the news website NOLA.com.
BP, which announced the findings in a statement Thursday, spent three days this week using a remotely-controlled underwater vehicle to inspect the Gulf bottom and the wellhead area at the site, including the drilling riser that had connected the rig to the sea floor, according to the report.
The inspection showed "small, intermittent drops of oil" leaking from an opening at the top and the side of the cofferdam. Samples of the droplets were collected to be analyzed as a potential match with the sheen.
The U.S. Coast Guard also said on Thursday that footage from an undersea camera confirms that the oil slick newly discovered in the Gulf of Mexico came from the cofferdam instead of the Macondo itself.
Oil will continue to dribble out slowly from the device for the time being, the Coast Guard said.
The oil slick spotted at the well site was first reported to the U.S. Coast Guard on Sept. 16 by BP, after the company examined satellite images taken during Sept. 9 and Sept. 14 of at the site of the well.
The Coast Guard determined the sheen did not pose a risk to the shoreline and was not "feasible to recover."
The 2010 blowout of BP's Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico triggered an explosion that killed 11 rig workers and unleashed the worst oil spill in U.S. history.
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