BP Captures More Oil But Spill Could Go Into Fall

Posted in Alabama Maritime News,BP British Petroleum,Deepwater Horizon,Environment,Florida Maritime News,Government,Gulf Coast,Louisiana Maritime News,Transocean on June 7, 2010

Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, appearing on CBS Face The Nation, said on Sunday that BP was succeeding in capturing more oil from its runaway well in the Gulf of Mexico, but cautioned that efforts to cap and clean up what’s already the largest oil spill in American history would stretch into the fall.

“This will be well into the fall,” Thad Allen said. “This is a siege across the entire Gulf.”

“We’re in the middle of a long-term campaign,” Allen, who’s coordinating the federal response, said to CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “This siege will go on for a long time. We have spread from South Central Louisiana over to Port Saint Joe, Fla. It won’t end soon. We need to have our shoulder to the wheel, do everything we can. This is a very, very, very tough problem.”

Allen appeared on four talk shows Sunday, striking a tone of cautious optimism, as he said that BP and Coast Guard efforts to contain the spill were beginning to pay off. But he also acknowledged that much more needed to be done, using combat vernacular to describe the oil spill as an “insidious enemy that is attacking all of our shores” and “holding the Gulf hostage.”

“We’ll be dealing with oil or the effects of oil long after the well is capped,” he said. “Long-term issues of restoring the environment and the habitats and such will be years.”

Allen reiterated in a White House briefing Monday that BP should give the press full access to oil response sites. “If we have to, we can issue an administrative order to the federal on-scene coordinator,” he said. “There are only two reasons why media should be prohibited from an area: if it’s a security reason or a safety reason.”

New BP live video feed shows more oil leaking at the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. BP CEO Tony Hayward said the containment cap placed on the ruptured deep-sea well in the Gulf had collected about 10,000 barrels of oil over the last 24 hours, and that BP hoped a second containment system will be in place by next weekend.

“We’re in the middle of a long-term campaign,” Allen, who’s coordinating the federal response, said to CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “This siege will go on for a long time. We have spread from South Central Louisiana over to Port Saint Joe, Fla. It won’t end soon. We need to have our shoulder to the wheel, do everything we can. This is a very, very, very tough problem.”

Allen estimated that the latest containment cap placed on the well was capturing 10,000 barrels a day, up from 6,000 barrels its first day. Still, the well could be tumbling as much as 25,000 barrels of oil per day into the Gulf, he said.

Allen declined to go as far as a BP top official who told reporters that he was “very pleased” with the latest operation to capture oil gushing out of the well.

“We’re making the right progress,” Allen said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “I don’t think anybody should be pleased as long as there’s oil in the water.”

“This will only end when we intercept the well bore, pump mud down it and put a cement plug in,” Allen said. “It’s bottom kill rather than top kill. The spill will not be contained until that happens.”