A4


Gulf Coast Oil Spill


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KLMNO


BP could nix test at any moment and reopen well


spill from A1


ideal, while below 6,000 psi might indicate leakage. Hunter, who witnessed the test from BP’s war room in Houston, told The Washington Post that the pres- sure rose to about 6,700 psi and appeared likely to level out “clos- er to 7,000.” He said one possibil- ity is that the reservoir has lost pressure as it has depleted itself the past three months. “It’s just premature to tell. We just don’t know whether some- thing is leaking or not,” Hunter said.


Seismic and sonar surveys will scout for evidence of oil and gas moving through the geological formations. Robotic submersibles


“Forgive us for being a little bit skeptical, but give me 48


hours.” — Robert Kraft, mayor of Gulf Shores, Ala.


are scrutinizing the muddy gulf floor and the base of the well’s blowout preventer, looking for signs of rising hydrocarbons. Allen issued a statement late in


the day saying that, although he is encouraged by the latest devel- opments, a return to the contain- ment strategy “remains likely.” Reopening the well would not be a sign of failure, Hunter said, because, with the new cap — the “3 ram capping stack” — on top of the well since Monday night, BP has more options for capturing the hydrocarbons. As many as four ships could soon give BP the capacity to collect between 60,000 and 80,000 barrels a day, which exceeds even the highest government estimate for what’s coming out of the well. “No matter what comes out of this entire operation, we’re going


to be in a much better position than we were before,” Allen said. The successful start to the pres- sure test incited clapping, hand- shakes and back slaps in the war room, Hunter reported. But given past mishaps, BP engineers and government officials muted their celebration. “We’re far from the finish line


here,” BP chief operation officer Doug Suttles told CNN. “It felt very good not to see any


oil going into the Gulf of Mexico. What I’m trying to do is maintain my emotions. Remember, this is the start of our test,” Kent Wells, BP’s senior vice president of ex- ploration and production, said in a conference call with reporters. Regardless of whether BP and


the government decide to keep the well closed at the top, the ulti- mate solution to the blowout is a mud and cement bottom-kill from a relief well that is four feet from Macondo laterally and has only about 150 feet vertically to drill. During the integrity test, drilling of the relief well has been suspended as a precaution against oil and gas surging into the new hole from Macondo. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R), leading reporters on a tour of an island the state is building to stop incoming oil, welcomed the closing of the well but said he was worried that public attention and federal help might slacken if the well remains sealed. “This fight’s not over for Louisi-


ana,” Jindal said. “It would be pre- mature to declare ‘Mission Ac- complished.’ ” In Gulf Shores, Ala. — a beach town that has been re- peatedly hit by tar balls and gooey oil — Mayor Robert Kraft wasn’t ready to pop champagne. “Forgive us for being a little bit


skeptical, but give me 48 hours,” Kraft said. If nothing goes wrong, he said, “I’ll breathe.” The test had been delayed two


days, first by government fears that it could backfire and then by a leak in a key component of the well’s new cap. The choke line, the crucial three-inch pipe, curved like an elephant’s trunk, sprang


The combined height of cap and spool is 30 feet


Sealing the well, for now


The latest cap that BP put on the gushing well is, at least temporarily, holding back the oil while scientists test the well bore. If the tests go as hoped, no more oil will leak into the gulf.


Valve Cap


Technically called a “3 ram capping stack,” the rams — powerful valves that close off the main shaft — are the centerpiece of the new cap. All valves were gradually closed Thursday.


Connector


The cap has several places where lines can be attached to direct oil to surface ships if needed.


Cap Flange transition spool 6 ft


This collar connects the cap to the failed blowout preventer below.


Blowout preventer


Blowout preventer head


Oil flow SOURCE: BP BONNIE BERKOWITZ AND ALBERTO CUADRA/THE WASHINGTON POST


This four-story stack of valves and machinery was supposed to close down the well in case of emergency, but it didn’t work.


Seafloor Oil flow


FRIDAY, JULY 16, 2010


Libyan controversy adds to BP’s woes


A year after bomber’s release, outrage revived over oil exploration


by Steven Mufson BP faced a new outcry Thurs-


day about whether the Scottish and British governments sought to smooth BP’s oil exploration contract talks with Libya by re- leasing prisoners, including the man convicted of bombing the Pan Am plane that went down over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. The bombing killed 270 people, including 189 Americans. With the approach of the first anniversary of the Lockerbie bomber’s release from a Scottish prison, several factors are feeding the new uproar, including new as- sertions by BP and the British government. U.S. senators from New York and New Jersey urged the company to shelve plans to drill offshore from Libya and called on the British government to demand the return of the Lock- erbie bomber.


“Both the British and United How much oil?


The Macondo well leaked oil for nearly 90 days, releasing 2.3 million to 4.5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, experts say. To look at it another way, if that much oil were poured into the Pentagon (which covers 29 acres), it would reach 10.2 to 20 feet high.


— Madonna Lebling


its own leak Wednesday night. Engineers swapped in a spare choke line from a surface ship. For hours Wednesday night and Thursday morning, video streams from the seafloor showed a chaot- ic plume of oil and gas surging from another outlet, the kill line. That was just the latest config- uration of the plume, which has taken on different forms as engi- neers have hacked and prodded the deep-sea hardware. A key turning point — one that


set the strategy that led to the in- tegrity test — came when govern-


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ment scientists in early June came up with a new, staggering estimate for the flow rate of 35,000 to 60,000 barrels a day. That spurred the government to demand that BP come up with a more robust set of containment measures. Allen said Thursday that, while developing this plan, it occurred to engineers that they might be able to use the new set- up to shut in the well. achenbachj@washpost.com


Staff writer David Fahrenthold in Louisiana contributed to this report.


States have vowed to fight a war on terror, and if one of the worst terrorists in history, responsible for more deaths than all but a handful of people, can be released for a few coins, or pounds, what does it say to other terrorists?” said Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D- N.Y.). “ ‘Commit this kind of act and we’ll take care of you, too.’ ” Among the new highlights:


 BP acknowledged Thursday that in 2007, it urged the British government to speed up a pris- oner release because it was wor- ried that a stalemate on that front would undercut an oil explora- tion deal with Libya. But the com- pany denied that in 2009, when progress on the Libyan venture bogged down, it sought the specif- ic release of the Lockerbie bomb- er, Libyan intelligence agent Ab- del Basset Ali al-Megrahi. “BP told the U.K. government


that we were concerned about the slow progress that was being made in concluding a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya,” BP said.


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 Karol Sikora, a British cancer expert who helped Megrahi qual- ify for a humanitarian release by saying that he had three months to live because of prostate cancer, acknowledges the error of that prediction. Nearly a year later, Megrahi is alive in Tripoli. Sikora had already said the Libyan gov- ernment suggested the three- month prognosis.  The new British government also spoke up Thursday. The Brit- ish ambassador in Washington, Nigel Sheinwald, issued a state- ment saying, “The new British Government is clear that Megra- hi’s release was a mistake.” But he denied any link between the re- lease and BP’s oil negotiations, and he disputed reports that medical evaluations were paid for by Libya. “Under UK law, where Scottish justice issues are devolved to Scotland, it fell solely to the Scot- tish Executive to consider Megra- hi’s case,” Sheinwald said. “Under Scottish law, Megrahi was enti- tled to be considered for release on compassionate grounds.” Asource familiar with BP nego-


tiations at the time said BP kept the U.S. government informed of its discussions with Libya and the United Kingdom, including talks about prisoner releases. BP had also hired Mark Allen, a Middle East expert and veteran of Brit- ain’s MI6 intelligence agency, and other former British government experts to help talks with Libya. “The Libya deal was done with the full blessing of the U.S. gov- ernment,” said the source, who sought anonymity to preserve his business relationships. “There was always a policy of no sur- prises with the U.S. government.” “We accepted at face value


what Scottish authorities told us, that this was a humanitarian de- cision that they made based on the medical information that was available to them,” State Depart- ment spokesman Philip J. Crow- ley said Thursday. “We said cat- egorically that this was a mistake, and that is still our view today. . . . We understand the outrage that the families of Pan Am 103 and their elected officials feel about this.”


mufsons@washpost.com


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