Adm. Allen: Could Capture 28,000 B/D Of Oil By Early Next Week
June 17 2010 - 11:00AM
Dow Jones News
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
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