WASHINGTON — High seas at the site of BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil well in the Gulf of Mexico will delay for at least two to three days the recovery of the well’s failed blowout preventer, retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said Monday.
The weather also will push back the completion of a relief well that Allen has said is the only way to ensure that the Deepwater Horizon well is sealed permanently.
Allen said seas of six to eight feet were too high for surface ships to lift the blowout preventer safely. Of primary concern, Allen said, was that the rising and falling of the waves would cause too much force to be exerted on the blowout preventer as it was tugged from the sea floor.
Allen said last week that engineers are uncertain whether the blowout preventer, a four-story collection of gears and valves that weighs hundreds of thousands of pounds, is still connected to drilling pipe below the seafloor. Concerned that lifting the blowout preventer could damage cement now sealing the well, engineers decided to limit the amount of pressure they would exert on the device until they are certain how or if the blowout preventer is connected.
A wave, however, could suddenly add to that pressure, or cause it to swing like a pendulum.
Engineers had hoped to lift the blowout preventer and install a new one this week in preparation for resuming drilling on the relief well perhaps Sept. 7 or 8.
With weather delaying those steps, it now appears likely that the relief well won’t reach the Deepwater Horizon well before mid-September.
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