2nd UPDATE: US Government Orders Spill Site Evacuation As Storm Brews

23rd Jul 2010 03:22

By Susan Daker, Angel Gonzalez and David Winning Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES HOUSTON (Dow Jones)--The U.S. government Thursday evening ordered the evacuation of a drilling rig working to intercept the damaged Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico, a move the federal response commander said may delay efforts to kill the well for several days. Ret. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said the safety risks of continuing operations when Tropical Storm Bonnie is tracking toward the oil spill site off the coast of Louisiana were too great, and many vessels working on oil recovery must also move out of harm's way. Allen reiterated comments earlier that a cap put in place by BP PLC (BP) on the mile-deep broken well will be left in place to prevent oil from again gushing into the Gulf. "I have also directed BP to take measures to ensure the vessels operating the remotely operated vehicles are the last to leave, and the first to return in order to maximize monitoring of the well," Allen said. He added that the evacuation operation would take place in stages to "allow us to promptly re-start oil mitigation efforts as soon as the storm passes and we can ensure the safety of our personnel." Earlier Thursday, BP officials said the spill response could be delayed by 10-14 days if the government had to issue an evacuation order. Not only the drilling of the relief well, which was expected to intersect the Deepwater Horizon well by late July, will be delayed: also an alternative proposal to kill the well by flooding it with drilling mud from the surface will be postponed. BP officials said late Thursday that they received permission from Allen to start preparing for that method, dubbed "static kill". "We are prepared to leave the well unattended for this particular event," Allen said during a teleconference from Mobile, Ala. The cap was put on top of the well last week and has been keeping up to 60,000 barrels of oil a day from flowing into the Gulf. Bonnie was upgraded to a tropical storm from a tropical depression Thursday, meaning its winds had increased to at least 39 miles per hour. Gale force winds could reach the oil-spill site by Saturday morning, Allen said. BP is drilling two relief wells and one has been on track to finish by mid-August. Its completion is heralded as the ultimate way to plug the well. BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said Thursday that the evacuations resulting from the storm could delay drilling of the relief well by as much as two weeks. On Wednesday, the company put a storm plug on the relief well 300 feet below the sea bed, he added. In addition to the evacuation of vessels near the spill site, equipment closer to shore will be moved. U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. Paul Zukunft, the on-scene coordinator for the oil spill response, told local officials in a letter released Thursday that there are concerns about the effect of a storm surge on the thousands of feet of oil-containment boom placed along the Gulf's shores. During two recent storm surges, tens of thousands of feet of boom were washed on to the shoreline and marshes of the area, causing damage to the environment, the letter said. The Coast Guard has set up staging areas in four states that rest on high ground to help deal with the problem as the storm approaches, the letter said. Richard Knabb, the tropical weather expert at the Weather Channel, said Thursday that the weather system is unlikely to form into a hurricane but would still push sea water, which could be mixed with oil and dispersant, on to land in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. "Some places would get onshore flow, no matter what strength (of storm)," Knabb said. However, the government announced Thursday that it had reopened one-third of the Gulf area that had been closed to fishing as a result of the spill. -By Susan Daker and Angel Gonzalez, Dow Jones Newswires; 713 547-9208; [email protected] (Russell Adams and David Winning contributed to this story) (END) Dow Jones Newswires July 22, 2010 22:22 ET (02:22 GMT)