BP inserted a new tube Sunday into the damaged oil pipe that has been gushing oil from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico for three and a half weeks in a bid to capture as much of the oil as possible.
The four-inch wide new pipe was inserted into the broken section known as the riser, from which the majority of the oil has been leaking. If it works, the inserted pipe could keep a substantial amount of the oil out of the sea by siphoning it up a mile-long pipe to the Discoverer Enterprise drillship and then to nearby barges.
"So far it's working extremely well," said BP senior vice president for exploration and production Kent Wells. He said the company has been able to flare, or burn, some of the natural gas at the surface, an indication that the insertion pipe is working. He said it would not be clear how much of the oil can be captured for another day or two, but he called it "a positive step forward."
"As of now there are still reasonably substantial amounts of oil coming out" of the damaged pipeline into the ocean, said Andrew Gowers, an executive vice president at BP. "That is in part a factor of the pressure we are bringing to bear in producing the oil." He added that the amount of oil brought up the new line would "be steadily increased." He cautioned "this is a gradual, carefully calibrated process aimed at steadily reducing the leak rather than a magic bullet."
It also remained unclear how the effort to capture oil from the main leak would affect a smaller leak closer to the well.
