BP said early Sunday morning that its attempt to place a new cap on its ruptured undersea well was proceeding as planned.
Officials hope the containment cap will stop oil from gushing into the Gulf. But while robots replace the old cap, crude is flowing freely.
Robots have removed the old cap in an operation that began Saturday, BP said in a statement Sunday.
The replacement is expected to take four to seven days, BP senior Vice President Kent Wells said Saturday, with favorable weather helping the process along.
Officials have said such a fix would be temporary, and the permanent solution would still be completion of a relief well. There are two relief wells under construction, with one expected to be completed in August. One could intercept the leaking well as early as the end of July.
The old cap had been diverting about 15,000 barrels a day (630,000 gallons) to a ship. BP still is recovering an additional 8,000 to 9,000 barrels a day (336,000 to 378,000 gallons) through a line connected to another vessel, the Q4000.
“As we start to ramp up the additional containment capacity, we should see less and less flow,” Wells said.
The Helix Producer recovery vessel is expected to begin collecting oil by Sunday, Wells said, and officials hope to reach full collection capacity of 20,000 to 25,000 barrels (840,000 to 1.5 million gallons) per day within three days.
Read Full Story
Article courtesy cnn.com
