http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1918382420100619
BP restarts drillship system after 10-hour lapse
June 19, 2010
2:38pm EDT
By Kristen Hays
HOUSTON (Reuters) – BP Plc restarted one of its oil-capture systems at the gushing leak in the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday after a 10-hour shutdown to fix a problem on a piece of fire-prevention equipment.
Spokesman Robert Wine said a “flame arrestor” on the vent atop an oil storage tank on the oil-collecting drillship was blocked, so it was shut down at 8:23 p.m. CDT (8:23 p.m. EDT) to allow crews to clean it out.
A flame arrestor is a device on the vent designed to dissipate heat to reduce the risk of fire, Wine said.
When a lightning storm blew in, BP decided to wait until it passed to restart the drillship system.
BP disclosed the shutdown in its daily 9 a.m. CDT (10 a.m. EDT) update of oil collected posted on its website. About three hours later, the company issued an announcement that said the system restarted at 6:30 a.m. CDT (7:30 a.m. EDT), before the shutdown was disclosed.
Wine said the company announced the restart when that operation, which takes several hours, was complete. “It’s a process, it’s not instantaneous,” he said.
The second system, where more oil is being burned off at a service rig, operated normally throughout the time the drillship system was shut down, Wine said.
Before the shutdown, the two systems captured 24,500 barrels a day of oil, or 87.5 percent of the systems’ total capacity of 28,000 barrels a day.
The drillship system, in which a containment cap at the top of failed blowout preventer equipment at the seabed channels oil to Transocean Ltd’s Discoverer Enterprise a mile above at the water’s surface, collected 14,400 barrels, down from the 16,020 barrels collected in the previous uninterrupted 24-hour period, BP said.
CONTAINMENT PLANS
The company said the second system, where oil is siphoned through a hose connected to the blowout preventer to Helix Energy Solution’s Helix Q4000 service rig at the surface, burned off 10,100 barrels of oil. That is the rig’s daily oil-handling capacity, according to BP.
The Q4000 must burn off oil because it has no storage or processing capacity, unlike the drillship, BP said.
The total amount of oil collected by the containment cap system since it was installed on June 3 reached 205,570 on Friday. The total burned off by the service rig since it began siphoning oil early Wednesday reached 23,220 barrels on Friday, according to BP figures.
BP aims to increase the surface oil-handling capacity to up to 53,000 barrels a day by bringing in another vessel to siphon oil from the blowout preventer through another hose and bring it to the surface. That vessel will be able to process up to 25,000 barrels a day, according to BP.
The latest estimate of the leak’s flow rate from a team of U.S. scientists is 35,000 to 60,000 barrels a day. U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, the top U.S. official overseeing the spill response, said Friday that range represents varied opinions and the actual flow is more likely at the low end.
But BP plans to increase capacity to up to 80,000 barrels a day by mid-July in response to Coast Guard demands for more oil-handling capability and backup systems.
That upgrade also will include switching the current containment cap for a larger one with what the company says is a better seal. That cap also will allow vessels at the surface to disconnect quickly and move if a hurricane approaches, unlike the current cap system.
Allen said the Coast Guard and BP might consider not switching caps at the end of June if the 53,000-barrel capacity appears to be capturing all the oil. The leak would gush unchecked when the current cap is removed and before the new one is secured, Allen has said.
But the current system does not allow the drillship to disconnect and move quickly if a storm comes, which is a critical part of the July containment phase, he said.
(Reporting by Kristen Hays; Editing by Doina Chiacu)
White House chief: Yacht trip another gaffe by BP
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hmRv_YUlI1GFQp-ArxAtk0n8S3EwD9GEGNCG2
(AP) – June 19, 2010
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s chief of staff says BP chief executive Tony Hayward has committed yet another in a “long line of PR gaffes” but attending a yacht race in England while the Gulf oil spill disaster continues.
Hayward faced a fresh avalanche of criticism as news circulated Saturday that he was at a yacht competition around the Isle of Wight.
White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel is mocking Hayward’s infamous statement that he wishes the crisis were over so could have his life back.
Referring to the yachting, Emanuel tells ABC’s “This Week,” “He’s got his life back, as he would say.”
Emanuel says the focus should stay on capping the leaking well and helping the people of the Gulf region.
Special thanks to Richard Charter