PORT FOURCHON, Louisiana (Reuters) - BP Plc said on Tuesday it has finished building a smaller dome designed to trap oil spewing from the floor of the Gulf of Mexico and plans to try placing it over the relentless leak on Thursday.
The so-called "top hat" dome was taken out to sea by ship from Port Fourchon in southeastern Louisiana, where it was made, and will be lowered to near the leak site later on Tuesday, BP <:BP.LO:>spokesman Bill Salvin told Reuters.
Robotic submarines will then make preparations before the containment structure is put into place, he said.
"We're hoping to have the system ready by Thursday," Salvin said.
Each day, at least 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons/795,000 liters) of crude oil have been gushing into the Gulf since an explosion on April 20 that demolished the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform, killing 11 crewmen.
The "top hat" is considerably smaller than the first dome that energy giant BP tried unsuccessfully to use last week and is designed to allow methanol to be pumped into the structure, which engineers hope will prevent the formation of crystallized gas that thwarted the previous attempt, Salvin said.
The plan is to place the chamber over the main leak in the "riser" pipe extending about 500 feet from the ruptured wellhead and to siphon the escaping oil from the top of the dome to a collection vessel at the surface.
The work is being done in almost total darkness at a depth of nearly a mile.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman; Editing by John O'Callaghan)
