BP is turning to desperate measures in its battle to stop its oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, proposing to fire bits of tyre and golf balls into the failed blow-out preventer on the sea bed, to plug the leaking pipe.
It has been forced to consider such extreme tactics by the failure of its attempt to use a “coffer dam” – a 100-tonne steel and concrete box – to trap the oil. As the attempt started, BP warned that coffer dams had never previously been used in such deep water, and its experience has shown that the conditions 5,000 feet down do indeed make things much more difficult.
The problem at those depths has been the formation of gas hydrates, ice crystals described as “jelly like” by one former drilling engineer, which filled the top of the container and made it impossible to use it to pump the oil up to the surface.
The problems have highlighted the issue of gas hydrates: strange substances that create a variety of hazards, but may also offer a huge opportunity.
