BP engineers begin final push to plug Gulf well

ENGINEERS will start shoving mud and maybe cement into the blown-out oil well in the Gulf of Mexico today in what could be one of the final steps to plug it for good, BP said yesterday.

BP senior vice president Kent Wells said crews will likely start the so-called “static kill” attempt today if tests determine the well can withstand the mud

There’s no guarantee of success, and BP engineers still plan to follow up the static kill days later by sending a stream of mud and cement into the bottom of the mile-deep underground reservoir through an 18,000-foot relief well they’ve been digging for months.

But the oil giant’s engineers and petroleum experts say it’s the clearest path yet to choke the well and make it even easier for the crews drilling the relief well to ensure oil can never again erupt from the deep-sea well, which has spewed as much as 184 million gallons since the rig connected to it blew up in April and killed 11 workers.

The only thing keeping millions more gallons of oil out of the Gulf at the moment is an experimental cap that has held for more than two weeks but was never meant to be permanent.

“It could be the beginning of the end,” said Darryl Bourgoyne, director of Petroleum Engineering Research Lab at Louisiana State University.

When the static kill begins, crews will slowly pump heavy mud through lines installed last month straight down the throat of the leaky well. If the mud forces the oil back into the massive underground reservoir and scientists are confident the pressure remains stable, then engineers can pump in fresh cement to seal it.

“The only thing that separates the oil from the sea now is the valve. This puts thousands of feet of mud and cement in between,” said Eric Smith, of the Tulane Energy Institute. “The idea is to have as many barriers as possible between the ocean and the reservoir. We’re adding an extra level of safety.”

The company tried a similar process to choke the well with mud in May. It failed partly because the mud couldn’t overcome the flow of the oil.

There’s reason to hope this time will be different. For one, the oil is no longer freely flowing from the well, thanks to the temporary cap, meaning that engineers won’t have to pump in mud with as much force, Wells said.

There’s always the risk that the pressure exerted by the mud will rupture the casing holding in the oil and potentially cause an even greater mess, but experts say it’s very unlikely.

“I can’t imagine it failing. It’s holding pressure and there’s no indication of any loss of fluid from the well,” Smith said. “It’s a vanishingly small risk of failure.”

The procedure is set to be completed by late August.

So if the oil is already contained and the completion of the relief well appears to be just around the corner, why is the oil giant even bothering to attempt the complicated static kill?

One answer is that it should make it easier to finish the relief well.

If the static kill is successful, though, Smith said they likely wouldn’t have to use as much mud to choke the oil. It’s also a good way for BP to hedge its bets in case the relief well takes longer than expected to work, he said.

The third reason is that the threat of another violent storm disrupting the cleanup process is increasing every day. Federal officials are hoping to end the oil threat before peak hurricane season, which typically lasts from mid-August to late October. “If we can get this thing shut in permanently before the August hurricane season, we will have dodged a huge bullet,” said Paul Zukunft, the government coordinator.