The top US official in charge of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico said Thursday the BP Plc well could be fully sealed by early September, dpa reported.
Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen told reporters that officials had agreed to a series of actions, which if successful, would allow them to undertake the so-called bottom kill procedure shortly after the US Labor Day holiday on September 6.
Oil giant BP and government officials must first undertake a complicated series of procedures and tests over coming weeks that include replacing a key part of the well known as the blow-out preventer that sits atop the well head. The blow-out preventer should have capped the leak after the explosion on the drilling rig in April, but inexplicably malfunctioned.
It must now be replaced out of "an overabundance of caution" to be sure that pressure building in the well does not create any leaks, Allen said, noting if all goes as planned the final steps to permanently close the well "could take place sometime the week after Labor Day."
While a cementing procedure earlier this month may have already sealed off the entire ruptured well, Allen has long made clear that only the completion of the relief well drilling could make certain that the gusher had been permanently stopped.
The relief well had long been viewed as the last step in permanently plugging the ruptured oil well, which has leaked about 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf since the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig.