Posted By thestatedtruth.com on June 4, 2010

June 4 (Bloomberg) — BP Plc may be able to capture more than 90 percent of the oil leaking from its Gulf of Mexico well with the cap it put in place last night.

“I’d like to see us capture 90-plus percent of this flow,” Doug Suttles, BP’s chief operating officer for exploration and production, said on CBS’s “Early Show” this morning. “That’s possible with this design. We have to work through the next 24 to 48 hours to optimize that.”

Oil is now venting from four valves in the cap that engineers expect to close today, Suttles said on CNN. The adjustable valves are intended to prevent clogging by icy gas hydrates that frustrated an initial attempt to contain the leak, he said. The cap was put atop the well to divert oil to ships on the surface.

Live video feeds on the BP website show oil still gushing into the Gulf. Suttles said that isn’t a sign the cap has failed. The leak is about 40 miles off Louisiana’s coast under about 5,000 feet (1,524 meters) of water.

BP yesterday cut off the riser pipe that used to attach the well to the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig. The company used shears after a diamond-saw blade, which would’ve made a cleaner cut and allowed for a tighter fit for the cap, got stuck.

More at: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a2fz_0Lrt274&pos=8

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