BP Plc oil spill workers in the Gulf of Mexico prepared for a possible evacuation on Thursday as a brewing tropical storm threatened more delays in efforts to end the environmental disaster. Some oil-skimming ships came ashore as Gulf seas grew choppy and US officials evaluated the threat from a tropical storm forming in the Caribbean near the Bahamas.
The storm is projected to swirl across the Gulf near the site where crews are working to plug the spill. Ships collecting seismic and acoustic data on the capped well and two rigs drilling a pair of relief wells remain on the site, but an evacuation would bring a temporary halt to both operations. "There has been no evacuation of equipment, but that could change. Some skimmers have been coming in," command center spokeswoman Mary Kahn said.
BP evacuated nonessential workers from eight operated offshore Gulf facilities, but the evacuations did not affect operations at the spill, the company said in a statement. An evacuation at spill sites could force a delay of 10 to 14 days in operations, retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen said on Wednesday. Ships in the region need several days to disengage from the operation and head to safety.
The largest offshore oil spill in US history, triggered by an April 20 explosion that killed 11 workers, unleashed an environmental disaster in the Gulf and devastated the region's tourist and fishing industries. BP capped the blown-out well last week, choking off the flow of oil for the first time since the explosion. The company is conducting pressure tests to ensure the seal can hold, but those would be halted by an evacuation.
Workers were close to completing a relief well designed to permanently plug the leak, but work has stopped to wait out the weather. BP also had been preparing a "static kill" operation to pump heavy drilling mud and possibly cement into the well.
BP and government scientists are considering whether to leave the cap sealed or open valves to relieve the pressure and let the oil gush unchecked if weather forces ships to move out of the storm's path. An evacuation would include the ships operating underwater robots that provide live feeds of the deep-sea well. If they leave, there will be no surveillance for possible problems with pressure at the wellhead for three to four days, Allen said.
The spill has sparked a crisis for British energy giant BP, which created a $20 billion fund to compensate victims of the disaster. Company shares remained relatively steady in New York, climbing 0.7 percent in early afternoon trading as the broader market rose.
In a report to a federal judge in New Orleans, the Obama administration said it had complied with his order blocking the government's original six-month ban on deepwater drilling. But it also argued the case was moot because a revised suspension order has been issued.
The new moratorium, which lasts through November and bars new projects that use blow-out preventers similar to the one used on the BP well, has already been challenged by one drilling company, Ensco Plc.
In a separate case, a federal judge ruled on Wednesday that all activity on oil and gas leases in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska must stop until regulators complete a more thorough review of how drilling there would impact the environment. In a lawsuit filed by environmental and Alaska Native organisations, the judge said the US government failed to abide by federal environmental law when it sold $2.66 billion worth of leases in the Chukchi in 2008, mostly to Royal Dutch Shell. A New York Times report on Thursday said workers on the doomed Deepwater Horizon drilling platform in the Gulf expressed concern about safety practices in a confidential survey conducted a month before the oil rig exploded.