VENICE, La., (Reuters) – BP inched ahead yesterday with a painstaking attempt to cap its ruptured oil well in the Gulf of Mexico and to safely siphon off some of the billowing crude in a high-stakes bid to curtail the 45-day-old deep-sea gusher.
The British energy giant’s robot submarines sheared away the oil-spewing well pipe after two days of trying, then began working to lower a containment cap over the jagged hole left on top of the crippled wellhead assembly resting on the seabed.
Despite the initial success in its latest effort to curb the flowing crude, BP’s financial outlook was further clouded as two credit-rating agencies downgraded the company’s debt, reflecting assessments that BP faces lasting damage.
Hours later, the Obama administration said it had sent a preliminary bill for $69 million to BP and “other responsible parties” to cover oil spill costs.
The U.S. disaster response chief, Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, said BP hoped to begin by late yesterday bringing at least some of the escaping oil and gas to the surface, where it would be collected on ships and safely removed.
BP chief executive Tony Hayward said the next 12 to 24 hours would determine whether the capping operation will succeed.
“It’s an important milestone,” Hayward said in Houston, adding, “This is simply the beginning.”
It was the first glimmer of hope for BP after many futile attempts to contain an oil leak that is belching 19,000 barrels of oil per day into the Gulf of Mexico. Allen called the day’s developments a “significant step forward.”
BP does not expect to be able to fully halt the oil flow until August, when two relief wells are due for completion.
President Barack Obama, seeking to contain political fallout from the disaster, planned to visit the Louisiana Gulf coast again on Friday to view what has eclipsed the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster as the worst oil spill in U.S. history.
Obama told CNN’s “Larry King Live” broadcast last night that he is “furious at this entire situation” in the Gulf because “somebody didn’t think through the consequences of their actions.” Obama said he has not seen enough of a rapid response from BP.
He also cited research suggesting that a powerful hurricane could help break up the far-flung oil slick, and that a smaller tropical storm could be worse for the spill because it might leave the slick more intact while washing it further inland.
The U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research projected that the oil slick would be driven by wind and currents around the Florida peninsula by early summer and up the East Coast, possibly as far as North Carolina.
The Coast Guard said late yesterday that oil spill investigators were responding to renewed reports of tar balls and other oily debris near several islands in the Florida Keys, which extend from the southern tip of the Florida peninsula.
But the substances will be tested to see if they originated from the Gulf spill. Tar balls previously found in the Keys were determined to be unrelated to the blowout.
Ratings agencies Moody’s and Fitch Ratings downgraded BP’s credit ratings yesterday and said they might cut them further on rising concerns over clean-up and legal costs.
Fitch, which in May admitted it had been wrong to assume that the impact of the spill on BP’s finances would be eased by insurance, said clean-up costs could exceed its worst-case scenario of around $5 billion in any one year.
Shares in BP, which are traded in London and New York, had a roller-coaster day but eventually jumped in New York by 4 about percent.
Elsewhere in the sector, shares of Halliburton Co. were down about 0.4 percent and Cameron International dropped 0.7 percent in late trading.
