BP officials were casting about for another way to slice through a leaking riser pipe located a mile underwater after a diamond-studded wire saw operated by a robot got stuck and was later found to be ineffective. The delay on Wednesday was one more bump in a frustrating obstacle course that BP has tried to run in dealing with a stricken oil well on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico, 50 miles offshore and a mile below the surface. Since an explosion on April 20 that wrecked a drilling rig and killed 11 workers, the well has been spewing thousands of gallons of oil a day into the gulf, fouling beaches, shellfish and birds on the coasts of Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi.
A technician involved in the effort said that the wire saw had cut less than halfway through the riser when it stopped being effective. The technician, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment on the work, said that it appeared that there was other material in the riser ”” including, perhaps, some of the objects pumped into the well during the failed “top kill” procedure last week ”” that was dulling the saw.
“It was cutting at a rate far less than it should have,” he said.