BP Plc engineers positioned a four-story metal chamber above a gushing, ruptured oil well on the seabed of the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday in an unprecedented effort to contain a possibly catastrophic spill.Using sensors, video cameras and undersea robots, engineers prepared to settle the 98-ton structure over the biggest of two leaks almost 1 mile (1.6 km) below the surface in a high-stakes operation that has never been tried at that depth.Company officials warned there was no certainty of success for the only short-term option for containing the leak. They are also drilling a relief well to halt the leak but it could take up to three months to complete.Moving carefully in heavy currents and darkness to avoid further damage, BP engineers hope to attach a pipe to the chamber to start pumping oil to a tanker on the surface next week in an operation they said could capture about 85 percent of the leaking oil.Survivors of the deadly oil-rig explosion that led to the leak said it was caused by a giant bubble of methane gas that rushed up the drill pipe, as workers and visiting BP officials in nearby crew quarters celebrated seven years of accident-free operations on the rig, according to a transcript of interviews obtained by a college professor.Robert Bea, an engineering professor at the University of California Berkeley, said he obtained the accounts from three rig workers familiar with the explosion -- including two in the rig's quarters.When the methane gas reached a room where mud used in well-drilling was stored, sparks from engines running pumps there ignited the gas cloud, according to the transcript.Swiss-based Transocean Ltd's Deepwater Horizon rig, under contract with BP, sank on April 22, two days after it exploded and caught fire, killing 11 people.ECOLOGICAL DISASTERThe resulting spill threatens an economic and ecological disaster targeting tourist beaches, wildlife refuges and fishing grounds in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. It has forced President Barack Obama to rethink plans to open more waters to drilling.BP, which faces major financial losses, suffered another blow on Friday when ratings agency Standard & Poor's lowered its outlook on the British oil giant to negative from stable.It is under pressure from the Obama administration to limit the damage. BP has said it will pay all legitimate costs, a bill that is likely to run into the billions of dollars.The U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Minerals Management Service said they will co-chair an investigation into the blast and hold a hearing on Tuesday and Wednesday in Kenner, Louisiana.After several days of calm weather, winds began to pick up on Saturday, preventing any controlled burns of the thickest concentrations of oil from the spill, a Coast Guard spokesman said. Crews conducted five burns on Friday.Forecasts said the winds would shift and come from the south to southwest, which could push the slick toward the Louisiana shore.Nearly 200 boats deployed protective booms and used dispersants to break up the thick oil on Saturday. Crews have laid almost 800,000 feet (240,000 metres) of boom, and spread 267,000 gallons (1 million litres) of chemical dispersant.In Buras, Louisiana, fishermen said they were worried about their livelihood and complained BP was not hiring enough locals, many of whom are of Vietnamese or Cambodian descent, for its cleanup jobs."I don't know what's going to happen," said fisherman Toai Tong, sitting outside his trailer in Buras. "It's really hard for us right now. I'm hoping for BP to call us to go to work too."LIABILITYBP Chief Executive Tony Hayward on Friday said a $75 million legal cap on the companies' liabilities for economic damages under federal law, which some U.S. lawmakers now want to raise, would not be a limit and renewed promises to meet all "legitimate" claims.Standard & Poor's, in announcing BP's negative outlook, indicated a ratings downgrade was likely. Moody's said the spill raised the specter of credit pressure for the five primary companies involved in the project.An estimated 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons/795,000 litres) have poured into the Gulf each day since the well ruptured. But Ian MacDonald, a biological oceanographer at Florida State University, said the estimate was much too conservative.The real flow rate from the undersea well, based on aerial images of the oil slick and estimates of the thickness of the oil itself, is probably closer to 25,000 barrels (1.05 million gallons/4 million litres) per day, MacDonald told Reuters.A sheen of oil has engulfed much of the Chandeleur Islands, barrier islands that are part of Louisiana's Breton National Wildlife Refuge, the first confirmation of the oil slick hitting land. Some oiled birds have been found in recent days.BP contractors and commercial fishermen worked feverishly in waist-deep water to anchor booms around tiny uninhabited barrier islands as thousands of birds watched, according to a Reuters photographer.The Breton refuge was closed to the public after a silver sheen and emulsified oil reached the shoreline, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service said. Altogether, crude from the spill could hit 24 national wildlife refuges.The Reuters photographer, on a flyover of the coast, saw a band of oil, orange in color and about a mile or two long, running parallel to shore about 17 miles (27 km) south of barrier islands off Mississippi's mainland.(Additional reporting by Matt Bigg in Venice, Louisiana; Matt Daily in New York; Tom Bergin in London; Anna Driver, Bruce Nichols and Chris Baltimore in Houston; Tom Brown and Pascal Fletcher in Miami; Karen Brettell in New York; Steve Gorman and Brian Snyder in Mobile, Alabama; and Richard Cowan in Washington; writing by Jeffrey Jones, John Whitesides and Ros Krasny; editing by Eric Beech and Vicki Allen)News posted by www.newsinfoline.com
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