“The line is expected to be repaired and normal flow restored in 4 to 5 days,” the company said two days after the leak was detected and plugged.

There are “no visible signs of oil slick on the sea surface near the site of pipeline leakage”, it said, adding, “However, two Coast Guard vessels are at site for surveillance and monitoring.”

ONGC resumed oil production from its Mumbai High fields by using an alternative sub-sea pipeline hours after the production was halted due to a leak in Mumbai Uran Trunk crude pipeline on Friday.

The company said operations at oilfields were nearly normal and that the fields were presently producing at the rate of 300,000 barrels per day as against normal level of 320,000 bpd.

ONGC’s multi-support vessel ‘Samudra Prabha’, equipped with repair assessment facilities and divers had located the leakage point.

“The most probable reason of leakage is fouling of anchor wire rope, of a construction barge working in the vicinity, with the sub-sea valve assembly of Mumbai High Trunk (MUT) line,” ONGC said.

“Cleaning of the area with high pressure jets is underway to ascertain the extent of damage. All the required material for repairs is available on board MSVs. The line is expected to be repaired and normal flow restored in 4 to 5 days,” it added.

PTI

The result was paralysis, The Times said.  For nine long minutes, as the drilling crew battled the blowout, no warning was given to the rest of the crew, the paper noted.

For many, the first hint of crisis came in the form of a blast wave, according to the report.
The paralysis had two main sources, The Times said. The first was a failure to train for the worst.

The crew members, though expert in responding to the usual range of well problems, were unprepared for a major blowout followed by explosions, fires and a total loss of power, the report said.

They were also frozen by the sheer complexity of the Horizon’s defenses, and by the policies that explained when they were to be deployed, the paper said. One emergency system alone was controlled by 30 buttons.

The Horizon’s owner, Transocean, the world’s largest operator of offshore oil rigs, had provided the crew with a detailed handbook on how to respond to signs of a blowout, the report noted.

Yet its emergency protocols often urged rapid action while also warning against overreaction.

The fiery April 20 explosion toppled the giant rig into Gulf of Mexico. The rig’s collapse ruptured underwater risers, opening a torrent of oil that fouled environmentally fragile Gulf coasts for three months before it was finally capped.
PTI

US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told a Senate hearing he would ask BP to repay salaries of any workers laid off because of the six-month moratorium on deepwater exploratory drilling imposed by the US government after the spill.

Turning up the heat on the British oil major, a senior US Justice Department official said after the markets closed that the department was “planning to take action” to ensure BP had enough money on hand to cover spill damages.

BP’s total bill so far, including cleanup costs, has reached $1.25 billion and the US government has already said it will have to pay billions more in penalties.The White House echoed Salazar’s comments.

“The moratorium is as a result of the accident that BP caused. It is an economic loss for those workers, and … those are claims that BP should pay,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told a briefing.

BP believes it may be heading for a showdown with the White House over widening liability demands, a BP source said. While the company has said it will pay for the clean-up and direct damages to those affected by the spill, the moratorium was a government decision and costs related to it were a different matter, the source said.

Earlier, the company’s stock closed down 4 percent in London on concerns the company might have to suspend its dividend payment. US politicians have been calling for this, saying the company should put its cash into paying for legal claims and environmental damage in the Gulf.

After contaminating wetland wildlife refuges in Louisiana and barrier islands in Mississippi and Alabama, the black tide of crude oil has taken aim at some of the famous white beaches of Florida, whose economy is heavily dependent on tourism.

One-third of the Gulf’s federal waters are closed to fishing and the toll of dead and injured birds and animals is climbing.

Frustration with BP and the US government’s response to the leak is growing in southeastern Louisiana, where fishing bans are taking a heavy toll on the local economy.

Joan Strohmeyer, who owns the Lighthouse Lodge in Venice, Louisiana, said her hotel is fully booked with BP workers and others responding to the spill, but that may not last.

“Is there going to come a time where I have nobody in my hotel?” she asked. “I don’t know whether we’re going to end up being ahead or behind.”

The Obama administration, facing growing voter discontent over its own handling of the crisis, has sought to distance itself from the company. Obama has also toughened his rhetoric in recent days and said in an interview this week he would fire BP CEO Tony Hayward if he worked for him.

Agencies

State owned oil and gas behemoth ONGC’s CMD R.S. Sharma said,  oil spill in gulf of Mexico from BP owned field is going to prove a game changer event for entire exploration and production industry and it will leave long term impact on the industry.

Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday Sharma said,  there is already moratorium imposed by US government on further deep water and ultra deep water drilling activities and this moratorium might get extended to other parts of North America and North Sea as clamour for such moratorium increases in European countries too.

He further said,  from now on it will be tough to get approval from regulators for deep water and ultra deep water E&P and they will demand higher safety standards, which will  result in cost escalation for both operators as well as service providers. 

After the incident we reviewed our safety practises almost five times and we fill,  we are prepared to handle such accident takes place in the Indian offshore sector,  he assured.

London-based BP, which has seen US $30 billion wiped from its market value, said it was capturing an estimated 2,000 barrels per day after inserting a siphon tube into the well, which began gushing after 20 April oil rig explosion.That was about 40 per cent of the 5,000 barrels BP estimated was leaking each day. The energy giant said it hoped to increase the amount of contained oil, and its shares closed up about 1 per cent on Tuesday. But a new video of the well showed what appeared to be vast amounts of oil continuing to spew into the ocean.

While officials have stressed the slick’s limited impact on prized Gulf beaches, fisheries and wildlife, the discovery of tar balls on a Key West island resort late Monday stoked concern that currents were greatly expanding the oil’s reach.Oil debris and tar balls have been reported in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi, and miles of protective booms are being used to defend the shore.The appearance of new tar balls on a beach is often an indication of an oil spill, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) says on its website.

Tests were being done to confirm whether the 20 new tar balls — they ranged from three to eight inches (7.6 -20 cm) in diameter — came from the BP spill, which threatens to eclipse the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill off Alaska to become the worst ecological disaster in US history.

“We believe it is unlikely (the tar balls) are from the Gulf oil spill, but we’ll know for sure in a couple of days,” Key West Mayor Craig Cates said. The Florida Keys are a major hub for the state’s US $60 billion-a-year tourism industry. US Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, whose district includes the Keys, said the tar balls, if confirmed as coming from the spill, would mean that Florida had entered “unchartered territory, with serious ramifications on our environment and economy.”                                                                                                   News Agency

Tony Hayward, left, and Kent Wells speak to the briefing at BP's Housto headquarters PHOTO: BP

The UK based BP continues their effort to contain the Macondo blowout. According to the BP chief executive Tony Hayward the second relief well, to be drilled by the Transocean semisub development driller II, could spud as early as Friday. Speaking at a media briefing in Houston he said, “The industry will learn from this and there will no doubt be changes. We now have a global industry effort in the Gulf.”

Later, BP’s senior vice president E&P Kent Wells told that, “We have a small army working to halt the blowout.”

BP has prepared to lower a smaller containment dome – dubbed a “top hat” – over the main leak on the riser which linked the Transocean semi-submersible Deepwater Horizon to the subsea blowout preventer (BOP) stack and wellhead template. The small dome will be connected by drill pipe and riser lines to Transocean’s drillship Discoverer Enterprise. Wells said the dome would be connected to the drillship and will be operational before it is lowered 5000 feet to the seabed.

Deployment of the five foot by four foot dome should be within the next 72 hours, Hayward said, adding that the company believed it had overcome the problem of gas hydrate formation, which had rendered the larger “Macondome” useless.

Earlier, BP spokesman Matt Taylor said, “There should be a higher concentration of oil and less sea water under the smaller dome than there was under the large one. We believe this will hinder the formation of hydrates.”  The larger Macondome now lies on the sea floor about 200 metres away from the ruptured riser it was meant to cap. BP has no plans to retrieve the dome at the moment.

BP had warned earlier that hydrate formation was a possible risk with the Macondome – but it appears that the supermajor believed that hydrates would form in the riser, not in the dome itself.

BP is still canvassing alternative options to try to staunch the estimated 5000 barrels per day flowing into the Gulf of Mexico from the blown-out wellbore. It is moving ahead with plans for a top kill option – first mooted late last week.

Meanwhile, US Congress is gearing up its Macondo investigations with a pair of hearings. The US Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources will grill execs from Transocean, BP and Halliburton on Tuesday morning.  Last week, a number of Democratic leaders called to increase the liability cap on companies responsible for oil spills from US $75 million to US $10 billion.

The Macondo well – a discovery well which was to be temporarily abandoned ahead of later completion as a subsea producer – blew out on 20 April  and the rig sank on 22 April. BP has a 65 per cent stake in Mississippi Canyon Block 252. Anadarko has 25 per cent and Japanese player Mitsui the remaining 10 per cent.

BP will continue to complete installing marine protection booms along the coast. As well as 180,000 feet of boom already in the water, an additional 300,000 feet is in the process of being deployed, with more on the way, BP said. BP added that it is mobilizing its full resources to fight the oil spill, which follows the sinking of the Transocean Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Mississippi Canyon 252 block. This includes efforts to stem the flow of oil into the water from the sub-sea well, to contain the spill offshore and to protect the Gulf coast.

The new onshore activity is focused on five locations in the potentially affected states: Venice, Louisiana; Pascagoula and Biloxi, Mississippi; Mobile, Alabama; and Pensacola, Florida. Staging posts are in place stocked with people and material, including about 100,000 feet of boom, to protect the shoreline in each area. Each of the states has oil spill response plans already in place and trained community groups and volunteers will also be available to aid the response to the oil spill and deploy resources, says a company communique.

Parallel to these, BP is setting up offices in each of these communities manned by company staff to provide information on what is happening, what is being done and any developments. These will connect with local government officials, community and other groups to provide information on developments. Tony Hayward, group chief executive of BP, said: “We are doing absolutely everything in our power to eliminate the source of the leak and contain the environmental impact of the spill. We are determined to fight this spill on all fronts, in the deep waters of the Gulf, in the shallow waters and, should it
be necessary, on the shore.”