Oil leak 'biggest environmental disaster we have ever faced'
Updated on 30 May 2010
A White House adviser has warned that the BP oil spill is "the biggest environmental disaster" ever in the US, as BP tells Channel 4 News it continues to fight the leak aggressively and admits it has lessons to learn.
White House energy advisor Carol Browner said in the US today the spill was: "probably the biggest environmental disaster we have ever faced in this country. It's certainly the biggest oil spill, and we're responding with the biggest environmental response.
"It means more oil is leaking into the Gulf of Mexico than at any other time in our history, and there's more oil than the Exxon Valdez."
BP, which has been accused by some of playing down the disaster, also today admitted that its top kill attempt - which basically involves plugging the leak via firing material into the problem area - had not worked, and said it was moving onto the next step.
Its chief operating officer Doug Suttles admitted: "This scares everybody. The fact that we can't make this well stop flowing, that we haven't succeeded in that so far."
A UK spokesman for BP told Channel 4 News: "We have made a commitment to clean up the spill, and we are fighting aggressively on a number of fronts."
President Barack Obama said the failure to stop the leak was "as enraging as it is heartbreaking".
"We are in this for months to come"
Biologist Professor Rick Steiner, writing for Channel 4 News, warned that the "catastrophe has magnified."
He said: "With the failure of the Top Kill attempt, the catastrophe has magnified exponentially. This was the last chance to kill this well before the relief wells can kill the well from the bottom. We are likely now in this for months to come."
He also criticised BP's contingency plan for accidents of this type.
"Any good oil spill plan needs to address the priority issue of stopping the outflow first, and then how to recover and respond to the oil spill second. The Regional OSRP for the Gulf of Mexico does not do such," he said.
"This is why they are left to engineer these options now, during a blowout, rather than having a plan detailing all such options beforehand."
A BP spokesman told Channel 4 News: "We absolutely expect that as a result of this incident - which is unprecedented - and the investigations that will be carried out into it, both the oil industry and the regulatory systems that govern it will undoubtedly learn many lessons which will be applied to future activities."
BP oil disaster in numbers:
As BP fights to contain the spill, Channel 4 News looks at the numbers behind the spill.
41 days since spill began
Between 429,000 barrels (68 million litres) and 952,000 barrels (151 million litres) estimate of how much oil spilled so far
Between 12,000 barrels (1.9 million litres) and 19,000 barrels (3 million litres) oil spilling every day
$930m cost to BP so far
104,000 calls to helpline, of which 28,000 were suggestions to stop the flow
8,000 ideas submitted by the public on paper to stop the flow
26,000 claims submitted so far, of which BP has already paid 11,650
1,300 vessels involved in BP’s response effort
22,000 personnel deployed
274,000 barrels (44m litres) oily liquid recovered from surface
Two months time before spill could be stopped if latest attempt fails
5,000 feet amount of water hindering efforts
238,000 barrels (38 million litres) size of Exxon Valdez, previously the worst oil spill in US history off the coast of Alaska
14.8 million barrels size of biggest ever oil spill in Kuwait, when Iraqi forces opened valves of several tankers to slow US forces
A BP spokesman told Channel 4 News that all of the flow figures were estimates, and added: “The number is irrelevant. Our response will be the same. We have made a commitment to clean up the spill, and we are fighting aggressively on a number of fronts.
“Our response is not determined by the size of the leak. We are working to stop the flow and contain the oil.”
BP is now moving onto the next step in its containment plan, which involves cutting off the damaged riser from the top of the failed pipe, placing a cap on it and capturing most of the oil and gass flowing from the well, a process called deloying the Lower Marine Riser Package (LMRP) Cap Containment System.
The cap is already on site and is set to be connected in about four days, BP said.
However, as with most of the techniques attempted to stop the spill, it has never previously been tried in 5,000 feet of water, and "the successful deployment of the containment system cannot be assured", BP stressed.
If it does not work, the relief wells are the final hope - an option which, as Channel 4 News science correspondent Julian Rush explained, "will mean another two months of oil gushing out before the well can be capped."
Top Kill and Junk Shots - science correspondent Julian Rush explains:
There were some pretty snide comments made by US politicians when it emerged that BP planned to block the flow of oil from its ruptured well by firing golf balls, pieces of rope and bits of old rubber tyre into the pipe. But there was science behind the choice of objects.
Top Kill is a well established oil industry technique used to shut off broken wells. I watched it being used, for example, in the aftermath of the first Gulf War when Saddam Hussein's retreating Iraqi troops set fire to hundreds of oil wells in the Kuwaiti desert.
But it has never been tried before 5,000 feet under the ocean.
The idea is simple. Officially called "bridging material", the "junk shot" of golf balls and other objects is pumped down a pipe from the surface into a manifold that BP engineers are connecting to two valves - the Choke and Kill Valves - on the Blowout Preventer (BOP). That is the device on the seabed at the top of the well whose spectacular failure to automatically shut off the flow of oil when the Deep Water Horizon rig exploded in a fireball caused the spill.
Also in a chamber in the manifold is tonnes of heavy mud, called kill mud.
The manifold is like a loaded double-barrelled shotgun, the mud and the junk shot pumped to very high pressures.
First the junk shot is fired from one barrel into the BOP where it should lodge against the partially closed rams that should have closed fully to stop the flow originally. The golf balls and bits of rubber tyre are chosen carefully to be both flexible enough to catch and tangle inside the riser pipe in the BOP and small enough to effectively block it.
Immediately afterwards the second barrel is fired, sending the mud into the BOP up against the blockage made by the junk shot and down into the well underground. Once enough mud is pumped in the flow should stop, when the final step, of cementing the well to seal it completely can begin.
If it fails first time, BP says it can reload the manifold and try again several times. But if it doesn't work at all then the only hope is the relief wells they are drilling. That will mean another two months of oil gushing out before the well can be capped.
