BP begins bid to cap oil with giant box

Into the deep: the containment box is lowered into the sea. The technology has been used before but never at such a depth
12 April 2012

CREWS today started lowering a giant concrete and steel box onto the leaking oil pipe in the Gulf of Mexico.

The 100-ton funnel is designed to collect up to 85 per cent of the gushing oil and pump it up to a tanker in a bid to avert a bigger ecological disaster.

Oil started to lap ashore on several barrier islands off the Louisiana coast, many of them fragile animal habitats. Birds were seen diving into the oily, pinkish-brown water, and dead jellyfish were washed up on the shoreline.

"It's all over the place. We hope to get it cleaned up before it moves up the west side of the river," said Dustin Chauvin, a 20-year-old shrimp boat captain from Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana. "That's our whole fishing ground. That's our livelihood." It will take several hours to lower the containment box into place but it could be operating by Sunday. "We haven't done this before," said BP spokesman David Nicholas. "It's very complex and we can't guarantee it."

Dangerous fumes rising from the oily water had delayed the lowering of the box for hours. The fear was that a spark caused by the scrape of metal on metal could cause a fire. But a crane finally lifted it from the deck of the supply boat Joe Griffin and into the Gulf, oil clinging to its white sides as it disappeared below the surface.

The technology has been used before but never at such extreme depths - 5,000 feet down, where the pressure is enough to crush a submarine. The box must be accurately positioned or it could damage the leaking pipe. BP spokesman Doug Suttles said he was not concerned about that happening. Underwater robots have cleared pieces of pipe and other debris near the leak. "We do not believe it could make things worse," he said.

The well blew last month when the drilling platform exploded 50 miles off Louisiana, killing 11 workers.

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