HOUSTON (Reuters) - BP has given up on efforts by underwater robots to close valves on a failed blowout preventer at the site of a massive oil leak in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, an executive said on Friday.
"We've essentially used up all those options," Doug Suttles, chief operating officer for BP <:BP.LO:>said regarding the robots' unsuccessful efforts to close the valves, called rams, and plug the leak at the well.
Suttles said BP was lowering a 98-ton steel box-like containment chamber over a broken pipe that had connected the well to Transocean's former Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, which exploded and sank more than two weeks ago about 50 miles from the Louisiana shore.
BP hopes to corral the leaking oil and channel it through a pipe to a drillship. The company also is drilling a relief well about a half mile from the well, which is the only proven method to plug the leak 5,000 feet below the water's surface.
Suttles said the robots had been trying in vain to close the valves on the blowout preventer, but the flow of oil remains unchanged.
BP is continuing to study two other options, which he said could be risky, in addition to the containment chamber and relief well.
One involves what Suttles called a "junk shot" that would entail injecting heavy fluids and other materials "to basically clog up the blowout preventer" and plug the leak. Other BP executives have referred to that option as a "top kill."
Suttles said BP brought in 20 experts from "across the world" to review that option.
The second option involves replacing a piece of equipment atop the failed blowout preventer with a new blowout preventer with valves that will close as designed and plug the leak.
A second, smaller leak is coming from the bent pipes that stem from that piece of equipment on top of the failed blowout preventer. Experts are studying whether removing that equipment could risk a worse leak.
"We don't want to do anything that would make the situation worse," Suttles said.
(Reporting by Kristen Hays; Editing by Marguerita Choy)
