The massive effort to clean up the Gulf of Mexico oil spill must be scaled back now, BP’s new chief executive officer said yesterday.
Tens of thousands of people – many of them fishermen – have been involved in the clean-up, but more than two weeks after the leak was stopped there is relatively little oil on the surface, leaving less work for oil skimmers to do.
Bob Dudley, who heads BP’s oil spill recovery and will take over as CEO in October, said it’s “not too soon for a scale back” in the clean-up, and in areas where there is no oil “you probably don’t need to see people in hazmat suits on the beach”.
He added, however, that there is “no pullback” in BP’s commitment to clean up the spill.
Dudley was in Biloxi, Mississippi, to announce that former Federal Emergency Management Agency chief James Lee Witt will be supporting BP’s Gulf restoration work.
Meanwhile, efforts to permanently plug the gusher hit a snag when crews found debris in the bottom of the relief well that must be fished out before they can pump mud into BP’s damaged well in a procedure known as a static kill.
The sediment settled in the relief well last week when crews popped in a plug to keep it safe ahead of Tropical Storm Bonnie.
They found the debris as they were preparing for the static kill and now they have to remove it. They had hoped to start it as early as Sunday, but removing the debris will take 24 to 36 hours.
“It has to be removed before we can put the pipe casing down,” said retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, the government’s point man for the spill.
After the static kill comes the bottom kill, where the relief well will be used to pump in mud and cement from the bottom of the broken well.