jws01us posted on 7/29/2010
BP expects to pay out over $60 million in advance payments to US Gulf Coast claimants in August, on top of $256 million in claims related to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill paid to date, the company said Wednesday, 28 July 2010.
The money is compensation to claimants, including commercial fishermen and tourism businesses, whose incomes have suffered as a result of the 20 April well blowout in 5000ft water depths and the resulting spill.
BP said it was making the announcement about August advance payments to let claimants know the payments would not be affected by next month's transition of the claims process to the newly established Gulf Coast claims Facility.
'We are encouraged that a number of fishing areas have been reopened by both state and federal governments. We hope this allows many who make their living in the Gulf to be able to begin doing so again,' said Darryl Willis of BP's claims team.
The company is also compensating deck hands and boat captains who claim the spill has resulted in lost income. BP said it has received 133,000 claims and issued over 83,000 checks in the 12 weeks since it began making claim payments on May 3.
Meanwhile, the company removed a storm packer placed in the Macondo relief well and was preparing to flush the wellbore before installation and cementing of the well's final casing, which could be completed this weekend.
National incident commander Admiral Thad Allen said Wednesday that pressure tests at the leaking Macondo well continued to indicate that the well was intact, allowing plans to perform a static kill operation next week to proceed.
Seismic and acoustic monitoring of the surrounding formation and seafloor have shown no sign that hydrocarbons are escaping from the wellbore, Allen said.
'So far, we have found no anomalies that we haven't been able to clear up, and it looks like everything's in good shape out there,' he said.
Following the static kill, BP plans to finish drilling the first of two relief wells for a bottom kill that could have the well permanently plugged by mid-August. The well has been effectively shut in for two weeks after engineers installed a stacking cap on the well's original blowout preventer.
Also on Wednesday, US Interior secretary Ken Salazar toured three offshore drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico to receive updates on additional safety and inspection measures for BOPs and well construction implemented after the Macondo disaster.
Salazar's stops included Murphy E&P's Front Runner spar in Green Canyon block 338, the Noble Danny Adkins rig in Green Canyon block 247, and the Rowan Ralph Coffman rig at South Timbalier block 144.
Murphy has been conducting a recompletion on A-2 well while the government-imposed six-month ban on new deepwater drilling is in place; The Noble Danny Adkins, under contract to Shell, is currently idle under the terms of the moratorium. The Rowan Ralph Coffman, a jackup working in shallow water, is currently drilling a 35,000ft well for McMoRan Oil & Gas.
'Today, we saw production activities and shallow water drilling operations that are implementing the new standards as they continue their operations,' Salazar said. 'We also continued to gather important information about the steps industry is taking to address shortcomings in safety, blowout prevention, and spill response capabilities in deep waters, so that those deepwater operations can safely resume.'
The Obama administration is facing pressure from Gulf Coast lawmakers to rescind the drilling ban, which they claim threatens to drag down the region's economy and employment.
By: Russell McCulley,
rmcculley@offshore-engineer.com