NEW ORLEANS -- A procedure intended to ease the job of permanently plugging the blown-out oil well in the Gulf of Mexico could start as early as the weekend, the government's point man for the spill response said Thursday. The static kill, as it is called, can begin once crews finish drilling the relief well that is needed for a permanent fix. Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen previously said the operation would begin late Sunday or early Monday. The static kill, which involves pumping heavy mud into the damaged well from the top, is on track for completion sometime next week. Then comes the bottom kill, where the relief well will be used to pump in mud and cement from the bottom; that operation will be less risky if the static kill has effectively plugged the well from the top. A temporary cap has held in the oil for the past two weeks, and Allen said crews are having trouble finding patches of the crude that had been washing up since the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig exploded April 20, killing 11 people. Before the well was capped, it spewed 94 million to 184 million gallons of oil into the gulf. No one ...
↧