The New Orleans Times-Picayune reported oil is leaking from the well at the Deepwater Horizon explosion site. About 1,000 barrels (about 42,000 gallons) a day are leaking from a wellhead about 5,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. The well was drilled by the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, which sank on Thursday after having exploded on Tuesday and burning for two about two days. 11 crew members are still missing.
"This is a very serious spill," Rear Adm. Mary Landry, the Coast Guard's 8th District commander said. "This has the potential to be a major spill."
Remote-controlled submersibles were used on Saturday "to survey a riser that once connected the well to a motor on the rig and discovered breaks in it." Oil likely started seeping into the water after rig sank.
This is a "game changer" according to a senior Coast Guard official, the NY Times reported.
By late Saturday afternoon, an oil slick covering 4,000 square miles was about 40 miles from the coast of Louisiana.
U.S. Coast Guard photo, April 23, 2010 |
The NY Times reported the oil is leaking underwater from two places.
The oil was coming from two places in the riser — the 5,000-foot pipe that connects the well at the ocean floor to the drilling platform on the surface. The rig, the Deepwater Horizon, which sank Thursday 50 miles off the coast of Louisiana, detached from the riser.
The riser, following a circuitous route underwater, now extends from the well to 1,500 feet above the seabed and then buckles back down...
“Somewhere along the line there, there’s a break in the line,” said Senior Chief Petty Officer Steve Carleton of the Coast Guard. “We’ve got something coming out in a kink, in a middle area where there is a bend.”
The Coast Guard was prevented from coordinating any cleanup efforts on Saturday due to strong winds and rain moving through the area since Friday, according to the Times-Picayune. "Waves are 10 feet high out there," Coast Guard Petty Officer Erik Swanson said.
The sunken rig is owned by Transocean Ltd., which was drilling the well for BP PLC. BP is leading the cleanup efforts and said it has deployed 32 vessels in the recovery efforts. "Before discovering the breaks in the riser, 1,052 gallons of oily water mixture had been recovered, and 1,900 gallons of dispersants had been deployed to contain any potential spills."
"We have one-third of the world's dispersant resources on standby," Landry said. "Our goal is to fight this oil spill as far away from the coastline as possible."
The rig is resting on the sea floor about 1,500 feet from the well head.
The Telegraph reported the search for oil rig survivors has been called off by the Coast Guard. Officials now believe the 11 workers never made it off the rig when it exploded.
Karl Kleppinger Sr, whose 38-year-old son Karl was one of the 11 missing workers, said he didn't blame the Coast Guard for calling off the search.
"Given the magnitude of the explosion and the fire, I don't see where you would be able to find anything," he said.
Times-Picayune photo |
According to Reuters, this is the worst oil rig disaster since 2001 when a rig off the the coast of Brazil exploded, killing 11 workers.
The explosion came almost three weeks after the Obama administration eased a ban on offshore oil drilling that opened up part of the Atlantic coast and more of the Gulf of Mexico to exploratory drilling. The Telegraph reported:
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the president still believes increasing domestic oil production can be done safely, securely and without harming the environment.
"I don't honestly think it opens up a whole new series of questions, because in all honesty I doubt this is the first accident that has happened and I doubt it will be the last," Mr Gibbs said.
For background on this slow motion disaster, please see my two previous diaries: