Hurricane Alex is slowing clean-up and oil-containment efforts at the site of BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill, even as a potential permanent fix for the leak remains weeks away.
Rough seas and winds spawned by the hurricane, which made landfall over north-eastern Mexico late on Wednesday and moved inland, delayed the British energy giant’s plans to expand the amount of oil it siphons from the ruptured deep-sea well.
Alex is forecast to dissipate over Mexico in one to two days.
The bad weather also threatened to push more oil-polluted water on to the shoreline of the US Gulf Coast and forced the halting of skimming, spraying of dispersant chemicals and controlled burns of oil on the ocean surface, officials said.
The worst oil spill in US history is in its 73rd day. It has caused an environmental and economic disaster along the US Gulf Coast, hurting fishing and tourism industries, soiling shorelines and killing wildlife.
President Barack Obama was scheduled to meet with senior US officials on Thursday to review the spill situation and oil-containment plans, the US Coast Guard said.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said on Wednesday one of two relief wells being drilled by BP in a bid to stop the leak from the ruptured well will take several weeks to reach the spewing oil pipe. The relief wells are intended to intersect and then plug the leak.
BP kept oil-capture and relief well drilling operations going at the leak site through the bad weather.
BP’s market capitalisation has shrunk by about $100-billion and its shares have lost more than half their value since the spill began on April 20, but are showing signs of stabilising. The shares rose for a third straight day in New York trading on Wednesday, rallying 4% following sharp gains in London.
Alex, a category-two hurricane when it made landfall late on Wednesday, packed maximum sustained winds near 169km/h. It hit the coast of Tamaulipas state in north-eastern Mexico, about 160km south of Brownsville, Texas, the US National Hurricane Centre said.
In Washington, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee voted on Wednesday to eliminate limits on liability that oil companies would face for oil spill damages.
The measure, which would apply retroactively to the BP spill, must be passed by the full Senate and the House of Representatives before going to President Barack Obama to sign into law. Oil companies currently have a $75-million cap for compensating local communities for economic losses and cleaning up environmental damage.
BP already has agreed to set up a $20-billion independently administered fund to compensate victims of the spill.
The Interior Department, focused on the BP spill, said on Wednesday it was postponing until later this year planned public hearings on a proposal from Obama — made before the BP spill began — to expand offshore oil drilling. — Reuters