By Kristen Hays
HOUSTON (Reuters) - British energy giant BP <:BP.LO:>Plc will seek to nearly double its oil-collecting capacity by mid-July, the U.S. official overseeing the Gulf of Mexico spill cleanup effort said on Friday.
BP also is bringing in a second drillship to the leak site that will raise the total collection capacity of its current system to about 38,000 barrels (1.6 million gallons/6.04 million liters) per day "toward the end of June," U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen said.
The drillships collect oil siphoned from the deep-sea spill while tankers transport that oil to a port, Allen said.
Under U.S. government direction, BP will upgrade its current collection system with a "hard cap" that can siphon up to 50,000 barrels (2.10 million gallons/7.94 million liters) per day, to be operational by mid-July, Allen told reporters at a briefing in Washington.
That's nearly double the 28,000 barrels (1.18 million gallons/4.45 million liters) per day collection capacity that BP will have once a new oil-flaring rig is activated next week, Allen said.
"That takes you from now to approximately mid-July to build that second system out," Allen said.
By mid-July, BP will switch out that entire system of vessels for another with more collection capacity and designed to handle rougher sea conditions as the U.S. hurricane season progresses, Allen said.
The July system is intended to keep collecting oil until BP finishes drilling a pair of relief wells that open the way to plug the leaking well. Those wells are slated to be finished in early to mid-August. The leak began with the April 20 explosion on an offshore rig that killed 11 workers and ruptured a deep-sea well.
Details of the new collection system came a day after U.S. scientists doubled their estimate for the amount of oil gushing from the blown-out BP well a mile below the ocean surface to 20,000 to 40,000 barrels per day.
"We directed BP to give us a plan to increase capacity," Allen said.
'ULTIMATE KILL'
Donald Van Nieuwenhuise, director of petroleum geoscience programs at the University of Houston, said on Friday that BP had little choice but to replace its current system with one that can better adapt to storms until the well is plugged.
"The ultimate kill is going to be these relief wells," he said. "In the interim, BP is doing everything it can to keep as much of that leaking oil out of the water."
BP said on Friday that the current system captured 15,400 barrels on Thursday, a bit less than the 15,800 barrels collected on Wednesday. The system has collected 88,700 barrels since it was installed last week, according to BP figures.
The current collection system involves a containment cap placed atop the pipe that is spewing oil into the ocean. An undetermined amount of oil and gas still gushes into the sea.
The collected oil and gas travel to a drillship at the ocean surface through a fixed pipe attached to the top of the cap. That ship can process 18,000 barrels of oil per day, and gas is being flared off, Allen said.
Next week, BP aims to start using a seabed system installed last month for its failed "top kill" effort to smother the leak in order to gather more oil and gas.
That system is intended to channel up to 10,000 barrels per day to a service rig, the Q4000, Allen said. The oil will be burned off because the rig has no onboard processing or storage capacity, Allen said.
Allen said the second drillship will add another 10,000 barrels a day of processing capacity for a total of 38,000.
With the new system in July, BP will replace the current cap with a larger cap and seal connected by hose to a floating pipe that stretches up to 300 feet below the water's surface, Allen said.
Another hose will connect the top of the pipe to a well testing ship now being converted to handle oil and gas production so it can disconnect and move if a storm comes, Allen said.
The Q4000 also will be replaced by another rig that has production capability onboard, eliminating the need to burn off collected oil, Allen said. Tankers to bring collected oil to shore will accompany the replacement ship and rig, he said.
(Additional reporting by Chris Baltimore; Editing by Will Dunham)
