Adm. Allen: Could Capture 28,000 B/D Of Oil By Early Next Week

A second vessel is allowing BP PLC (BP) to contain a bigger portion of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, even as a parallel bid to permanently plug the well moves ahead of schedule, the leader of the U.S. effort to control the spill said Thursday.

U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said in a conference call with reporters that the vessel, known as the Q4000, captured 1,200 barrels in the first 12 hours of production on Wednesday, and would add 2,000 to 3,000 barrels a day to the amount captured by the main vessel connected to the mile-deep leak, the Discoverer Enterprise. That would bring the total amount captured to between 16,000 and 17,000 barrels a day.

Allen said that progress was being made in the war against the spill.

"There have been days where we have actually recovered more oil throurgh containment and recovery than what came out" of the well, he said. U.S. authorities estimate the well to be leaking at a rate between 35,000 barrels a day and 60,000 barrels a day.

Allen added that efforts to drill a relief well through which BP would pump cement to plug the leak are progressing "ahead of schedule." The relief well, currently at a depth of more than 9,900 feet below the seafloor, will "come very close to the well very shortly," passing within 10 feet of the main well within a couple of weeks, Allen said.

Allen, however, declined to move the current mid-August target date for the completion of the effort. He added that the relief well must pass beyond the leaking well by 1,000 feet and turn back before intersecting it, a complex operation.

Allen said that BP's plan is underway to increase the capture capacity of the response operation to about 28,000 barrels a day by early next week, 53,000 barrels a day by the end of June, and if required, 60,000 to 80,000 barrels a day by the end of July.

-By Angel Gonzalez, Dow Jones Newswires; 713-547-9214;angel.gonzalez@dowjones.com

Cooper Cameron (NYSE:CAM)
Historical Stock Chart
From May 2024 to Jun 2024