BP Fixes Leaking Hose; Hopes to Move Forward on Cap Test

(July 15) -- BP says it has repaired a leaky hose and is poised to test a new cap on its gushing well in the Gulf of Mexico, one day after the company suffered another setback in its attempt to stop the flow of oil.

Before the well can be completely sealed, the company needs to assess the strength of the cap by increasing pressure inside the well. The test was called off Wednesday when the company found a leak in a choke line leading to one of the valves.

BP hopes to test the pressure as soon as possible, BP Senior Vice President Kent Wells told reporters this morning.

The tests involve slowly shutting three giant valves on the cap, an 18-foot-high, 150,000-pound stack of metal pipes and machinery lowered Monday over the blown-out well. BP has managed to close the first two.

But BP hit a snag when its engineers tried to close the third one, a different type of valve that shuts more slowly. While trying to do that, they had spotted a leak in a choke line attached to the valve's switch.

During the tests, all eyes have been on pressure gauges that show the force of the oil flow building up inside the new cap. Those readings will help engineers know how severely damaged the blown-out well is, and whether it's leaking in more than one place. They could also give the most precise estimate so far of how much oil is spewing from the seafloor.

But fears of too much pressure building up -- and possibly risking a catastrophic rupture -- delayed those tests for more than 24 hours earlier this week, while BP met with Obama administration officials to allay fears and do additional analysis. Once it was cleared to go ahead on Wednesday, BP stopped siphoning oil from the well up into tankers floating on the water's surface above, in order to begin tests on the new tighter-fitting cap.

The tests will determine whether BP can close the valves for good -- choking off the flow of oil from its blown-out well for the first time since the April 20 explosion that killed 11 workers and unleashed America's worst-ever oil spill. However, it could be 48 hours before that happens.

"This is an important test," Wells told reporters on a conference call Wednesday, according to Bloomberg News. "We're proceeding with overabundance of caution."

If the new cap is deemed strong enough to contain the well, it might collect all the oil itself or help siphon it up to collection tankers on the water's surface, without any oil spewing into the water. But it's still only a temporary measure. Two relief wells being drilled into the seafloor nearby are due to come online in August, to relieve pressure and plug the blown-out well completely. Work on those wells had to be suspended for the duration of the cap tests, out of fear the drilling could disturb those operations.

The cap could prove valuable over the next month or so, once the relief wells resume drilling but before they're ready, especially during the gulf hurricane season. Thad Allen, a retired Coast Guard admiral leading the government's oil spill response, told The New York Times the cap, if found to be reliable, could prevent oil from leaking into the gulf even if collection ships are forced to abandon the well during a hurricane.