BP Hopes To Increase Capture Rate By 40,000 To 50,000 Bbls/Day

11th Jun 2010 16:50

By Susan Daker Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES HOUSTON (Dow Jones)--In a strategic and delicate dance of drilling ships, tankers and undersea remote-controlled robots around a broken well in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, BP PLC (BP, BP.LN) hopes to increase its daily collection rate to 40,000 to 50,000 barrels of oil by the end of this month or early July, U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said Friday. After the government requested it, BP submitted a new plan, which involves replacing its current drilling ship the Discoverer Enterpriser with other vessels that are not usually used in the Gulf but can withstand harsher sea conditions and will be able to capture and store more oil as the company waits for the most permanent solution: the completion of drilling on two relief wells. "We will probably shift from a containment cap to a more hard cap, which will help us to capture more if not all of the oil that is coming out of the well head," Allen said in a news conference. U.S. Secretary of Energy Stephen Chu and U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar were reviewing the plan Friday morning and will submit it back to the U.K. oil giant with questions and suggestions, Allen said. A public statement could be released Friday afternoon, he said. "The issue is for BP to move quickly," Allen said. This news comes as the scientists charged by the government with measuring the Macondo's well flow rate announced Thursday evening that about 20,000 to 40,000 barrels a day of oil could be spewing into the Gulf. One estimate puts the number as high as 50,000 barrels a day. These numbers do not take into account the fact that BP cut part of a pipe connected to well that could have increased its flow rate by 5% to 20%. The scientists are currently studying the flow rate post-cut and should have those numbers later, Allen said. BP captured 15,400 barrels of oil Friday, a decrease of 400 barrels a day from Thursday. There has been concern that the collection ship's rate of capturing and processing the oil, which includes separating natural gas from it and separating the oil from sea water, has reached a plateau. It may have, even though Allen said the Discoverer Enterprise might be able to handle 18,000 barrels a day. BP said Thursday that 18,000-rate is difficult to maintain for an extended period of time. By next week, a mobile drilling shipped called the Q4000 will be ready to burn off 5,000 to 10,000 barrels of oil a day, Allen said. If both the Discoverer Enterprise and Q4000 run at optimum capacity, about 28,000 barrels a day could be captured and processed. By the end of a June, a third ship will be staged that could add up to 10,000 barrels of a day of processing capacity, Allen said. "That will ultimately be replaced by a new containment system ... which will allow us greater capacity and the ability to disconnect quickly in the case heavy weather" Allen said. As for why these extra ships aren't already on scene, Allen said that some of the vessels have to move from the North Sea and that there is concern about congestion around the well site. There isn't just an issue about space above on the water's surface. Underwater, about 16 to 20 robots are moving around monitoring the Macondo well and the drilling of two nearby relief wells, he said. "Right at the well site itself there is a limit to how much activity you can bring there," Allen said. "You can have anywhere from 25 to 30 vessels in two square miles." -By Susan Daker, Dow Jones Newswires; 713-547-9208; [email protected] (END) Dow Jones Newswires June 11, 2010 11:50 ET (15:50 GMT)