This Article is From Jul 16, 2010

BP: No oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico

BP: No oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico
New Orleans: British energy giant BP stopped the oil flowing into the Gulf of Mexico for the first time in three months as it began key tests hoping to stem the spill for good.

Shortly after BP engineers shut down the last of three valves on a giant new cap placed on the blown-out well, Senior Vice President Kent Wells announced no oil was leaking into the seas.

"I'm very excited to see no oil flowing into the Gulf of Mexico," Wells told reporters, but cautioned it was only the start of a testing process set to last 48 hours to analyze the condition of the underground well bore.

The announcement was the first sign of real hope for desperate Gulf residents who have had their livelihoods ravaged by the worst environmental disaster in the nation's history, now in its 13th week.

Teeming fishing grounds have been closed and tourists have been scared away -- two vital economic lifelines for the southern region still struggling to recover from the 2005 Hurricane Katrina.

Endangered wildlife has also been increasingly threatened by huge ribbons of oil fouling the shores of five states -- Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.

The costly, massive clean-up is likely to last years. The tests are intended to determine whether the well bore, which stretches four Kilometres below the sea-bed, was damaged during an April 20 explosion on the BP-leased Deep Water Horizon rig which sank two days later.

BP is hoping to choke off the oil flow out of the well, estimated at between 35,000 to 60,000 barrels a day. But cutting off the flow of oil from the top could force oil out in new leaks if the well bore was damaged.

"We would like the result that says there is perfect integrity," Wells said, but cautioned it was too early to say whether the leaking well had been completely choked off.

During the test, engineers will be taking multiple readings from the 10-metre capping stack placed on top of the wellhead on Monday to monitor the pressure inside.

High pressure readings would allow the three valves to remain shut and the well would effectively be sealed, but low readings could mean there is a hole somewhere in the casing of the well from where the oil is escaping.

"If we have very low pressure readings, it'd be the equivalent of putting your thumb over the garden hose and the water's going someplace else because there's no pressure," said the official in charge of the US response, Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen. 
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