Oil Spill "Clean Up" Plan... Update!

BP to try tube, not ‘top hat,’ in Gulf gusher

Deployment set for tonight; testimony reveals lax, outdated drilling rules

Setting aside their "top hat" strategy for now, BP officials said Thursday they would instead try threading a small tube into a jagged pipe gushing crude from the Gulf seafloor.

Engineers will have to make sure the 6-inch-wide tube is inserted deep enough into the 21-inch-wide pipe so gas and seawater don't mix, which can form crystals that could clog the tube. They'll also have to thread the tube into the pipe without hitting debris around it.

The smaller tube will be surrounded by a stopper to keep oil from leaking into the sea. If it works, the tube will then siphon the crude to a tanker at the surface, though BP declined to estimate how much oil the tube will be able to collect.

Company spokesman Bill Salvin said engineers hope to start moving the tube into place Thursday night, but it will take 12 hours to get the tube fully hooked up.

BP had earlier weighed first going with a small containment box called a "top hat," which is already on the seafloor and also would siphon oil to a tanker on the surface.

Officials are waiting to use the box until they know if the tube works, and how well it's working, Salvin said.

Engineers might also consider trying to fill the leak with golf balls and other debris — the "junk shot," though that won't be until at least next week.

And a relief well is being drilled, but that is at least two months away.

BP's updates came a day after hearings in Washington and Louisiana uncovered a checklist of unseen breakdowns on largely unregulated aspects of well safety that apparently contributed to the April 20 blowout aboard the Deepwater Horizon: a leaky cement job, a loose hydraulic fitting, a dead battery. Company officials insist what caused the accident is not yet clear.

The stubborn blowout continues to spew an estimated 210,000 gallons of oil into the Gulf each day.

Regulations called lax, outdated
In Congress, federal officials looking into the disaster were focusing Thursday on lax or outdated federal regulations.

Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., said he wants to know why the Minerals Management Service gave permits to BP and the companies involved in various aspects of the well and rig.

Stupak told CBS Thursday that once permits to drill are issued, the federal government's role is to make sure the companies are drilling properly.

House investigators at a hearing Wednesday said they found evidence of equipment failures in aspects of the well's safety that weren't monitored: a leaky cement job, a loose hydraulic fitting, a dead battery.

The trail of problems highlights the reality that, even as the U.S. does more deepwater offshore drilling in a quest for domestic oil, some key safety components are left almost entirely to the discretion of the companies doing the work.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar this week said he would split the Minerals Management Service in two to make safety enforcement independent of the agency's other main function — collecting billions in royalties from the drilling industry.

But the events that unfolded in the hours before the blowout on the Deepwater Horizon rig suggest that much more will ultimately need to be done on the regulatory front.

Focus on blowout preventer
Lawmakers have focused in on the rig's blowout preventer, which Lamar McKay, the president of BP America, said at the House hearing "was to be the fail-safe in case of an accident."

On April 20, desperate rig workers tried to activate the preventer's hydraulic cutoff valves to squeeze off the surge. However, hydraulic fluid was leaking from a loose fitting in the preventer's emergency system, making it harder to activate powerful shear rams to cut the piping and cap the blowout. Also, a battery had gone dead in at least one of two control pods meant to automatically switch on the preventer in an emergency.

A Coast Guard official told the hearing that federal regulations for accident response were outdated.

"The pace of technology has definitely outrun the regulations," Lt. Commander Michael Odom testified. "You have a one-shoe-fits-all approach in terms of the regulations."

The current regulations were written in 1978, when offshore drilling was in nearshore areas with quicker access to help from onshore facilities.

"I think the regulations need to get more specific on deepwater and ultra-deepwater operations," he said.

Standby vessels should be required for deepwater and ultra-deepwater rigs for emergencies, Odom said.

The first rescue helicopters took more than an hour to reach the Deepwater Horizon, witnesses have told the board. Workers began jumping in the water within 20 minutes of the first explosion. They were picked up by a rescue boat from a ship that was collecting drilling mud from the rig.

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