US Gulf Spill Roundup

摘要

A relief well intended to plug BP’s gushing Gulf of Mexico oil leak is still weeks from completion, a top US official said on Wednesday, as the season’s first Atlantic hurricane disrupted cleanup ef- forts. Hurricane Alex was delaying British energy giant BP’s plans to boost contain- ment capacity at its leaking undersea wel and threatening to push more oil-pollut- ed water onto U.S. shores. A relief well, one of two being drilled, is less than 1,000 feet from its target but will still take weeks to reach the spewing oil pipe, US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told lawmakers. The relief wells are intended to intersect and then plug the ruptured deepwater well.