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wtorek, 31 sierpnia 2010

Officials to update on stalled effort to kill oil well


Thad Allen, the government's point man on the BP oil disaster, and Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser will meet Tuesday before briefing the public on the cleanup effort.

The effort to permanently kill the ruptured oil well deep in the Gulf of Mexico has stalled because of turbulent seas.

Officials had planned to detach a device called a blowout preventer from the well and replace it with a new one, a procedure aimed at paving the way for a permanent fix for the well.

BP annouced the postponement of the procedure on its Twitter page Monday.

"Operations will commence as soon as sea states reach acceptable levels," the company said.

Allen had warned Friday that changes in weather could result in a change in schedule. Last week, the operation was delayed as engineers tried to fish out pieces of drill pipe stuck inside the blowout preventer.

Officials have said the blowout preventer failed when the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded April 20, killing 11 people and causing oil to gush into the Gulf of Mexico, leading to one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history.

Authorities from a Justice Department evidence recovery team will be on site during its removal, Allen said.

The well has been capped since July 15, and no new oil is flowing into the Gulf.

But still the impacts of the spill have been massive.

The effects of the oil spill on the region's travel industry could last up to three years and cost up to $22.7 billion, according to an analysis conducted by Oxford Economics for the U.S. Travel Association.

In preparing the research, Oxford Economics looked at current spending, government models predicting oil flow and the effect of 25 past crises on tourism to develop a model to gauge the Gulf disaster's impact.

Case studies of past disasters -- including the SARS respiratory outbreak, Hurricane Katrina and the 2004 Asian tsunami -- show that tourism often is affected beyond the disaster area and long after the resolution of the crisis.

Source: CNN

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