Deepwater Horizon incident: update
Published: 25 October, 2012
US Coast Guard approves plan to secure containment dome following sheen reports in September.
The 40-foot-tall containment dome had been used in 2010 as a part of an attempt to capture oil and allow it to flow through a pipe to a barge on the surface. The technique was unsuccessful and the equipment was moved away from the well head and riser and set in its current position approximately 500 meters from the original Macondo well head.
The operation, which began Tuesday, included BP mobilizing a remotely operated vehicle from the offshore construction vessel Skandi Neptune to the containment dome to place a cap on top of the stove pipe and plug the ROV connection ports on the sides and top of the structure. The cap and plugs were successfully put in place and no further oil emissions from the containment dome were observed.
BP has collected data via satellite throughout the operation and will continue to do so for a five-day period following, in order to detect changes in the surface sheen and to evaluate the effectiveness of these actions in abating or eliminating the sheen. In addition, the Coast Guard plans an overflight of the area later in the week.
Representatives from the Coast Guard, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement and Gulf Coast Incident Management Team's Department of Interior Liaison, as well as state on-scene coordinators from Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida observed the controlled feed in New Orleans.
The FOSC has further directed BP to submit a feasibility plan that considers the next steps toward either removing or remediating the threats of oil posed by the riser pipe and containment dome.
The operation and proposed plan were in response to an oil sheen in the vicinity of the Deepwater Horizon incident first reported to the National Response Center Sept. 16. The Coast Guard issued a Notice of Federal Interest to BP and Transocean after the reported sheen was correlated to the oil that originated from BP's Macondo well.
