Robotic Submarines Removing Oil Leaking
Robotic Submarines Removing Oil Leaking
Robotic Submarines Removing Oil Leaking
Robotic submarines removed the cap that had been placed on top of the leak in early June to collect the oil and send it to surface ships for collection or burning. BP aims to put a new, tighter cap in place and said that, as of Saturday night, the work was going according to plan.
If tests show it can withstand the pressure of the oil and is working, the Gulf region could get its most significant piece of good news since the April 20 explosion on the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig, which killed 11 workers.
BP began trying Saturday afternoon to remove the bolted top flange that only partially completed the seal with the old cap. Video images showed robotic arms working to unscrew its bolts. Wells said that could last into Monday depending on whether the flange can be pulled off from above, as BP hopes.
If not, a specially designed tool will be used to pry apart the top and bottom flanges. Once the top flange is removed, BP has to bind together two sections of drill pipe that are in the gushing well head. Then a 12-foot-long piece of equipment called a flange transition spool will be lowered and bolted over it.
The second piece of pipe inside the well head came as something of a surprise, and raises the possibility that one of the sections of pipe became jammed in the Deepwater Horizon's blowout preventer, though which the well pipes run.
The failure of the blowout preventer, a massive piece of equipment designed to stop the unchecked flow of oil, is partly to blame for the size of the spill. Ultimately, BP wants to have four vessels collecting oil within two or three weeks of the new cap's installation. If the new cap doesn't work, BP is ready to place a backup similar the old one on top of the leak. The government estimates 1.5 million to 2.5 million gallons of oil a day are spewing from the well, and the previous cap collected about 1 million gallons of that. With the new cap and the new containment vessel, the system will be capable of capturing 2.5 million to 3.4 million gallons essentially all the leaking oil, officials said. The plan, which was accelerated to take advantage of a window of good weather lasting seven to 10 days, didn't inspire confidence in the residents of the oil-slicked coast.
Robotic submarines working a mile underwater removed a leaking cap from the gushing Gulf oil well Saturday, starting a painful trade-off: Millions more gallons of crude will flow freely into the sea for several days until a new seal can be mounted to capture all of it. There's no guarantee for such a delicate operation almost a mile below the water's surface, officials said, and the permanent fix of plugging the well from the bottom remains slated for mid-August. How It Would Work The latest effort to cap and contain the Gulf oil spill is a multistep process.
Here's how it would work:
1. The existing containment cap will be removed -- perhaps in a matter of minutes.
2. Robot submarines will then remove a stub of pipe that's bolted to the top of the blowout preventer. That could be tricky, involving the removal of six large bolts. Once the stub is removed, that will expose a flat plate, or flange.
3. Two pipes that are sticking up inside the blowout preventer will be then strapped together.
4. BP will then install a cylindrical device over the protruding pipes that will be bolted down onto the flange.
5. BP will then install a manifold, or valve system, on top of that cylindrical device.
6. Once that valve system is in place, BP will need to connect four pipes or houses to oil processing ships at the surface. That should be enough to capture 60,000 to 80,000 barrels of oil per day, which should be enough to capture all the oil from the runaway well. Federal officials estimate that the well is spewing between 35,000 and 60,000 barrels of oil per day.
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