BP tries to plug leak using robots

NEW ORLEANS – Undersea robots manoeuvred a mile beneath the Gulf of Mexico yesterday to delicately lower a new, tighter-fitting cap over BP’s busted well – a fix the oil giant hopes can finally stop the leak after nearly three months.The new cap, a 150 000-pound metal stack, was about 300 feet from where it’s supposed to be installed on top of the leaking well, BP chief operating officer Doug Suttles said in a news briefing yesterday.A swarm of remote-controlled robots moved around heavy equipment near the seafloor on live video provided online by BP PLC. It was not clear how close the cap was to the well, but Suttles said the operation was complex and could take longer than they expected. Oil could still be seen flowing freely from the top of the well where the cap will be attached. The BP executive was careful to keep expectations grounded, stressing that once the cap is in place, it will take days to know whether it can withstand the pressure of the erupting oil. The cap and vessels together make up BP’s plan to stop oil from spewing into the Gulf for the first time since April 20.“Until we have the cap on, securely fitted in place, and know it’s operating per the design, we have to recognise this is a complex operation,” Suttles said. It is the nation’s worst offshore oil spill. The well has spewed between 89.3 million and 176.4 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, according to federal estimates. The Exxon Valdez spilled about 11 million gallons.Matthew Peterson, a crabber in Yscloskey, Louisiania, hasn’t put out his traps since oil began washing ashore.“The oil is . . . . going to be there for, what, maybe 10 years?” he said. “Until it’s cleaned up, nothing’s going to get back to normal.”