Fears as BP remove Gulf well cap

THE cap that ended BP’s three-month oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico was set to come off yesterday as a prelude to raising a massive, failed piece of equipment and preparing for a final seal on the broken seafloor well.

Engineers and the government were not expecting crude to break out again when the cap is lifted, but the government wasn’t offering any guarantees and oil collection vessels were set to be on standby on the surface just in case.

The cap is an elongated metal cylinder that was placed on top of the failed blowout preventer to finally stop the flow of oil and gas on July 15. With the cap gone, the old blowout preventer can be removed and a new one put in place before engineers try to seal the well for good deep underground.