BP increased the estimated cost of its Gulf of Mexico oil spill to $450 million Thursday, after it released a video showing oil and gas pouring from its well a mile beneath the ocean’s surface, MarketWatch reported.
BP released the video to the public late Wednesday, more than three weeks after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig caught fire April 20 and sank two days later about 40 miles off the southern tip of Louisiana. The uncapped well that resulted from the accident has released more than three million gallons of crude into the Gulf, making it the worst offshore well blowout in U.S. waters since the 1969 Santa Barbara Channel blowout off California, MarketWatch noted.
The video release comes after Sen. Barbara Boxer, D., Calif., at a hearing Tuesday, asked BP American President Lamar McKay about the availability of subsea videos of the well.
To quell the spill, BP is continuing to set a”top hat” dome over the well’s drill stem. Earlier it tried lowering a larger containment dome to the seafloor, which failed. BP also released video of the failure its first subsea containment dome, which was lowered into place over this past weekend.
The company also continues to use oil booms and dispersants to fight the spill, including a technique of skimming oil from the top of the ocean.
BP executives were grilled by House and Senate lawmakers Tuesday and Wednesday regarding the spill.
In a new development, Henry Waxman, D, Calif., presented internal documents from BP, MarketWatch noted. The documents revealed that the blowout preventer on the well had a problem with the fail-safe system meant to provide emergency power to cut and seal the drill pipe and stop a leak in an emergency.
