Cap off, oil flows freely

NEW ORLEANS – Robotic submarines removed the cap from the gushing well in the Gulf of Mexico yesterday, beginning a period of at least two days when oil will flow freely into the sea. It’s the first step in placing a tighter dome that is supposed to funnel more oil to collection ships on the surface a mile above. If all goes according to plan, the tandem of the tighter cap and the surface ships could keep all the oil from polluting the fragile Gulf as soon as tomorrow.“Over the next four to seven days, depending on how things go, we should get that sealing cap on. That’s our plan,” said Kent Wells, a BP senior vice-president. It would be only a temporary solution to the catastrophe unleashed by a drilling rig explosion nearly 12 weeks ago. It won’t plug the busted well and it remains uncertain that it will succeed. The oil is flowing mostly unabated into the water for about 48 hours – long enough for as much as five million gallons to gush out – until the new cap is installed. The hope for a permanent solution remains with two relief wells intended to plug it completely far beneath the seafloor. Engineers now begin removing a bolted flange below the dome. The flange has to be taken off so another piece of equipment called a flange spool can go over the drill pipe, where the sealing cap will be connected. The work could spill over into today, Wells said, depending on how hard it is to pull off the flange. BP has a backup plan in case that doesn’t work: A piece of machinery will pry the top and the bottom of the flange apart. On Friday, National Incident Commander Thad Allen had said the cap could be in place by tomorrow. That’s still possible, given the timeline BP submitted to the federal government, but officials say it could take up to a week of tests before it’s clear whether the new cap is working. The cap now in use was installed June 4, but because it had to be fitted over a jagged cut in the well pipe, it allowed some crude to escape. The new cap – dubbed “Top Hat Number 10” – follows 80 days of failures to contain or plug the leak. (AP)