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Cautious optimism as BP oil well cap holds up

17 July 2010 00:42 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. A giant cap on a leaking Gulf of Mexico well was holding back gushing crude for a second day Friday, amid hopes BP may have almost staunched the worst oil spill in US history, APA reports quoting AFP.

The image from a live BP video feed shows no apparent oil leakage in the Gulf of Mexico. The 30-foot (10-meter) cap, sealed off on Thursday to enable tests on the well below, has stopped oil from flowing into the ocean for the first time since an April explosion on a BP-leased drilling platform just off Louisiana.

The 30-foot (10-meter) cap, sealed off on Thursday to enable tests on the well below, has stopped oil from flowing into the ocean for the first time since an April explosion on a BP-leased drilling platform just off Louisiana.

US President Barack Obama said the halt to the oil flow was "good news," but cautioned Friday it was not a final solution to the leak which has triggered the nation’s worst ever environmental disaster.

"It is important that we don’t get ahead of ourselves," Obama told reporters at the White House.

A permanent end to the spill is not expected before mid-August, when two relief wells should enable BP to fill the ruptured wellbore with cement, drowning the oil flowing up from a huge undersea reservoir.

But Gulf residents now hope new impetus will be given to the clean-up operation, with the shorelines of five states ravaged, vital fishing waters closed and tourists shunning the usually popular beaches.

"Thank God that it happened," said O’Neil Sevin, who runs a bayou-side shop selling bait, seafood, beer, tackle and snacks to recreational fishermen in Chauvin, Louisiana.

"I was jumping up and down for a while when I saw it was capped."

Estimates suggest anywhere between 35,000 and 60,000 barrels of crude have been leaking every day since the rig sank April 22, two days after an explosion on the platform which killed 11 workers.

The International Energy agency has calculated there are between 2.3 million and 4.5 million barrels of crude sloshing around in the sea.

BP senior vice president Kent Wells said Friday he was "encouraged" by the initial results of pressure tests trying to determine whether the wellbore was damaged in the April explosion.

"The current monitoring that we’re doing shows no negative evidence," he told reporters as the complex operation continued a mile down (1,600 meters) on the seabed.

A total of 1,978 birds have been found dead since the spill in the Gulf of Mexico

The wellbore stretches for several miles below the floor of the sea and any underground damage could lead to new leaks as the cap contains oil from the top of the leak, forcing it back down into the wellbore.

The tests are due to finish Saturday, when crews plan to resume capturing and siphoning away the oil while the results are examined.

Meanwhile a grim, complicated and expensive clean-up process, likely to take years, remains ahead for the region’s oiled beaches and marshlands.

"It is an enormous relief to learn that the flow of oil that led to America’s worst environmental disaster has finally been stemmed," said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, an environmental group.

"We hope we can now turn more resources and attention to responding to the devastation that this oil disaster has already caused, and to making sure this sort of preventable tragedy never occurs again."

Endangered wildlife has also been increasingly threatened by huge ribbons of oil fouling the shores of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.

Obama acknowledged there was still "an enormous amount of work to do," but called on Americans to remain positive.

"We are making steady progress and I think the American people should take some heart in the fact that we’re making progress on this front."

The disaster prompted the Obama administration to quickly issue a moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf.

A first six-month freeze was overturned by a Louisiana judge amid stiff opposition. But the White House issued a new moratorium this week, halting deepsea drilling through November.

BP has so far spent at least 3.5 billion dollars dealing with the spill, and compensation claims could eventually cost 10 times that amount, with BP agreeing to set up a 20-billion-dollar fund to pay any damages.

The British energy giant said Friday it has paid out more than 200 million dollars in compensation to Gulf residents so far, meeting some 32,000 claims. Another 61,000 claims are waiting to be processed.