BP finishes pumping cement into blown-out Gulf oil well

August 6, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS

BP finished pumping fresh cement into its blown-out oil well Thursday as it aimed to seal for good the ruptured pipe that for months spewed crude into the Gulf of Mexico in one of the world’s worst spills.

A day before, crews forced a slow torrent of heavy mud down the broken wellhead from ships a mile above to push the crude back to its underground source. The cement was the next step in this so-called “static kill” and is intended to keep the oil from finding its way back out.

“This is not the end, but it will virtually assure us that there will be no chance of oil leaking into the environment,” retired Adm. Thad Allen, who oversees the spill response for the government, said in Washington.

The progress was another bright spot as the tide appeared to be turning in the months-long battle to contain the oil, with a federal report this week indicating that only about a quarter of the spilled crude remains in the Gulf and is degrading quickly.

Even so, Joey Yerkes, a 43-year-old fisherman in Destin, Fla., said he and other boaters, swimmers and scuba divers continue to find oil and tar balls in areas that have been declared clear.

“The end to the leak is good news, but the damage has been done,” Yerkes said.

If the mud plug in the blown-out well is augmented successfully with the cement, the final step involves an 18,000-foot relief well that intersects with the old well just above the vast undersea reservoir that had been losing oil freely since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded off Louisiana on April 20, killing 11 workers.

The hope has been to pump mud and possibly cement down the relief well after its completion later this month, supplementing the work in this week’s static kill and stopping up the blown-out well from the bottom.