HAMMOND, La. (AP) – At first, BP tried to stop the oil rushing into the Gulf of Mexico by flipping a blowout preventer switch. A week ago, they attempted to capture the leak with a 100-ton box. Now they’ve hit a snag as they try to guide a mile-long tube into the gusher to siphon the oil.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said BP had a problem Saturday with the latest effort to stop the leak, but was continuing its work at the ocean floor.
“There was a problem. They had to reconfigure. They are back down again … trying to get it inserted,” he told reporters during a briefing Saturday morning, declining to offer further information.
BP PLC has offered scant details of its progress in trying to thread the 6-inch tube into the 21-inch pipe spewing oil from the ocean floor. Company spokesmen said technicians are continuing the methodical work of using joysticks to guide the deep-sea robots that are manipulating the contraption, but wouldn’t elaborate on Salazar’s report.
“We’ve never done such operations before and we need to take our time to get it right,” spokesman Jon Pack said in an e-mail Saturday.