MAY 10, 2010, 6:54 A.M. ET
A WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE NEWS ROUNDUP
BP PLC said Monday that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill has cost the company $350 million so far.
In an update, BP said the current tally includes the cost of the immediate response, containment, relief well drilling, commitments to the Gulf coast states and settlements and U.S. federal costs. The company doesn't speculate about the final cost. BP said it will attempt to place a smaller containment dome over the main leak point, after it failed to deploy a larger dome last week.
Meanwhile, federal and state officials are considering radical measures to slow the oil slick's approach to the Gulf Coast shoreline.
The U.S. Coast Guard is helping private companies and regional governments acquire 300 million feet of barriers, known as booms, to protect thousands of miles of coastline between Louisiana and Florida.
As the edge of the slick reached Louisiana's Chandeleur Islands and tar balls began to wash up on Alabama's Dauphin Island, the possibility of a boom shortage emerged.
Oil has been pouring for three weeks from BP underwater well worked by Transocean Ltd.'s sunken Deepwater Horizon rig.
More
* BP's Preparedness for Major Crisis Is Questioned
* U.S. Considers 'Malfeasance' in Leak
The ongoing spill has the potential to become the biggest in U.S. territory, surpassing the 1989 Exxon Valdez accident in Alaska. U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, national incident commander for the spill, on Friday told emergency workers that the government might be forced to pull stocks of booms from other areas of the country, leaving those places vulnerable should another spill occur.
Doug Suttles, BP's chief operating officer for exploration and production, called Mr. Allen's warning "premature."
The London-based company said that it was preparing a second, smaller containment box to lower over the main leak point at the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig after attempts to do the same with a larger box last week were foiled by icy slush.
BP said the smaller dome was designed to mitigate the formation of the "large hydrate volumes'' that clogged the bigger dome. However, it acknowledged that the maneuver, which is designed to siphon up to 85% of the leaking oil to a tanker at the surface, had never been done before in more than 5,000 feet of water. The blown-out well, which is gushing at least 200,000 gallons of crude each day, is a mile underwater.
BP added that further work on the well's blow out preventer, the device that was supposed to shut off the flow of oil after a deadly April 20 oil rig explosion but failed, meant the company was in a position to attempt a "top kill'' to stop the flow of oil. That technique involves shooting mud and concrete directly into the blow out preventer.
The company said that work on the first relief well, which is considered a permanent fix and began a week ago, continues and is expected to take three months to complete.
"All of the techniques being attempted or evaluated to contain the flow of oil on the seabed involve significant uncertainties because they have not been tested in these conditions before," the company said in a statement.
"BP continues to do everything it can, in conjunction with governmental authorities and other industry experts, to find a solution to stem the flow of oil on the seabed," it added.
The slick has the potential to reach swaths of Louisiana's coastline by Monday evening, according to the latest forecast by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Booms remain the primary protection in Louisiana, the first state touched by the oil.
Gov. Bobby Jindal on Saturday said Louisiana had begun to pursue additional lines of defense, including asking the National Guard to drop four "tiger dams"—plastic tubes filled with a heavy mix of water and sand— to guard seven miles of coastline near Southwest Pass, the main commercial shipping entry to the Mississippi River.
Mr. Jindal said the state will ask the Coast Guard to approve a plan to dredge 43 miles of new islands connected to the Chandeleur Island chain to form a barrier against oil hitting the state's eastern coast. Other islands could be built to create a solid line of natural defense for Barataria Bay, near Grand Isle, La.
The first phase of the project will cost an estimated $200 million, which regional authorities will ask BP to pay, said Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser. He said the operation would take as many as six months to complete, but would provide some protection "immediately." Mr. Suttles said he had only seen a "basic outline" of the plan, and it was too early to say how BP will respond.
Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703880304575235821104449994.html?mod=rss_whats_news_us_business&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wsj%2Fxml%2Frss%2F3_7014+%28WSJ.com%3A+US+Business%29
A WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE NEWS ROUNDUP
BP PLC said Monday that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill has cost the company $350 million so far.
In an update, BP said the current tally includes the cost of the immediate response, containment, relief well drilling, commitments to the Gulf coast states and settlements and U.S. federal costs. The company doesn't speculate about the final cost. BP said it will attempt to place a smaller containment dome over the main leak point, after it failed to deploy a larger dome last week.
Meanwhile, federal and state officials are considering radical measures to slow the oil slick's approach to the Gulf Coast shoreline.
The U.S. Coast Guard is helping private companies and regional governments acquire 300 million feet of barriers, known as booms, to protect thousands of miles of coastline between Louisiana and Florida.
As the edge of the slick reached Louisiana's Chandeleur Islands and tar balls began to wash up on Alabama's Dauphin Island, the possibility of a boom shortage emerged.
Oil has been pouring for three weeks from BP underwater well worked by Transocean Ltd.'s sunken Deepwater Horizon rig.
More
* BP's Preparedness for Major Crisis Is Questioned
* U.S. Considers 'Malfeasance' in Leak
The ongoing spill has the potential to become the biggest in U.S. territory, surpassing the 1989 Exxon Valdez accident in Alaska. U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, national incident commander for the spill, on Friday told emergency workers that the government might be forced to pull stocks of booms from other areas of the country, leaving those places vulnerable should another spill occur.
Doug Suttles, BP's chief operating officer for exploration and production, called Mr. Allen's warning "premature."
The London-based company said that it was preparing a second, smaller containment box to lower over the main leak point at the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig after attempts to do the same with a larger box last week were foiled by icy slush.
BP said the smaller dome was designed to mitigate the formation of the "large hydrate volumes'' that clogged the bigger dome. However, it acknowledged that the maneuver, which is designed to siphon up to 85% of the leaking oil to a tanker at the surface, had never been done before in more than 5,000 feet of water. The blown-out well, which is gushing at least 200,000 gallons of crude each day, is a mile underwater.
BP added that further work on the well's blow out preventer, the device that was supposed to shut off the flow of oil after a deadly April 20 oil rig explosion but failed, meant the company was in a position to attempt a "top kill'' to stop the flow of oil. That technique involves shooting mud and concrete directly into the blow out preventer.
The company said that work on the first relief well, which is considered a permanent fix and began a week ago, continues and is expected to take three months to complete.
"All of the techniques being attempted or evaluated to contain the flow of oil on the seabed involve significant uncertainties because they have not been tested in these conditions before," the company said in a statement.
"BP continues to do everything it can, in conjunction with governmental authorities and other industry experts, to find a solution to stem the flow of oil on the seabed," it added.
The slick has the potential to reach swaths of Louisiana's coastline by Monday evening, according to the latest forecast by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Booms remain the primary protection in Louisiana, the first state touched by the oil.
Gov. Bobby Jindal on Saturday said Louisiana had begun to pursue additional lines of defense, including asking the National Guard to drop four "tiger dams"—plastic tubes filled with a heavy mix of water and sand— to guard seven miles of coastline near Southwest Pass, the main commercial shipping entry to the Mississippi River.
Mr. Jindal said the state will ask the Coast Guard to approve a plan to dredge 43 miles of new islands connected to the Chandeleur Island chain to form a barrier against oil hitting the state's eastern coast. Other islands could be built to create a solid line of natural defense for Barataria Bay, near Grand Isle, La.
The first phase of the project will cost an estimated $200 million, which regional authorities will ask BP to pay, said Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser. He said the operation would take as many as six months to complete, but would provide some protection "immediately." Mr. Suttles said he had only seen a "basic outline" of the plan, and it was too early to say how BP will respond.
Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703880304575235821104449994.html?mod=rss_whats_news_us_business&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wsj%2Fxml%2Frss%2F3_7014+%28WSJ.com%3A+US+Business%29
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