BP gears up to plug 'world's biggest' oil spill

The US government has said the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is the biggest oil leak ever, as BP prepares its "static kill" operation to permanently seal its well.

The Macondo well has been temporarily sealed with a cap for just over two weeks

A new government estimate suggests BP's Macondo well leaked 4.9 million barrels of oil before being capped last month.

Scientists said only a fifth of the leaking oil - around 800,000 barrels - was captured during the clean-up.

The well broke open after an explosion on a drilling rig in April.

The new assessment of the leak is higher than previous estimates. The figure will be crucial in calculating the environmental damage done, as well as the money to be paid to the US government by BP.

The BP spill is greater than the 1979 Ixtoc I leak in the Gulf of Mexico, which gushed 3.3 million barrels.

Only the intentional release of an estimated eight million barrels of oil into the Gulf by Iraqi troops during the Gulf War in 1991 was greater.

On Tuesday, BP will do tests to establish how quickly it can move to a procedure known as "static kill". The tests were due on Monday but were delayed by a leak in a hydraulic line.

The "static kill" will see heavy drilling fluid known as "mud" will be used to force any remaining oil back into the reservoir.

A decision will then be made on whether the well can be immediately sealed with cement.

Tropical Storm Colin has formed in the Atlantic, but is not on track to hit the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the US National Hurricane Center has said.

The well initially leaked about 62,000 barrels of oil per day, higher than any previous estimate of the flow. But as the reservoir of oil became depleted, the flow slowed to about 53,000 barrels per day.

The flow ended on 15 July, when BP closed a new cap it had put on the well.

Last week, BP reported a record $17bn (£11bn) loss, having set aside $32bn to cover the costs of the spill.

'Bottom kill' crucial

The static kill, also known as "bullheading", takes place in three stages.

• First, a test determines if oil can be pushed back down the well into the reservoir
• If that goes well, the static kill is begun by pumping in mud at low pressure. This could take a day or more
• Then, engineers will have to decide whether to pump in cement at the top of the well or wait and pump in cement from the relief well into the bottom of the damaged well.

The relief well will reach the damaged well some time between 11 and 15 August.

The permanent "bottom kill" will take anywhere between a number of days and a few weeks. The final casing has been cemented in place, which is the prelude to the last bit of drilling.

An earlier effort, in May, to pump mud into the well using much of the same equipment failed because the pressure of the spewing oil and gas was too great.

Now it should prove easier because of the sealed cap on the well.

From BBC.

Space station rotates to dodge another piece of space junk

Washington - The International Space Station did an about- face rotation on Sunday in order to dodge another piece of space junk, NASA officials said.

But it was not as close a call as more than a week ago, when three station astronauts prepared to evacuate as a piece of debris approached.

In the current situation, the station was headed to a close encounter on Monday with a 10-centimetre-broad bit of debris from the upper stage of a Chinese rocket, NASA spokesman Kyle Herring told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

The intent of Sunday's manoeuvre - a 180-degree turn - was to slow the station down by a tiny amount in order to steer clear of the junk on Monday, Herring said from the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

Herring said the rotation, which only lasted three hours, put the docked space shuttle Discovery on the leading edge of the ISS as it orbits 350 kilometres above the Earth.

Normally, the smaller Russian Soyuz spacecraft is at the front.

With Discovery and its larger surface area on the leading edge instead, the ISS orbiting speed of 27,700 kilometres an hour was slowed down enough - about 1 kilometre an hour - to avoid collision with the debris.

The station was turned around again to its normal position after the three hours.

On March 12, before the shuttle Discovery arrived, the station's three-person resident crew took refuge in the Soyuz evacuation capsule and closed the hatches after ground controllers determined that a piece of space junk was within range for a possible collision.

The nearly centimetre-long debris passed safely by the ISS. It was noticed too late for the ISS to manoevre to avoid the debris, as it did on Sunday.

The Soyuz capsule provides a quick exit from the station in case there are problems.

(www.topnews.in)

US to target 'Afghan drug lords'

The US has put 50 Afghans suspected to be drug traffickers with Taliban links on a list of people to be "captured or killed", the New York Times reports.

Two American generals have told the US Congress that the policy is legal under the military's rules of engagement and international law, the paper says.

In a report, yet to be released, it was described as a key strategy to disrupt the flow of drug money to the Taliban.

Opium trafficking provides the Taliban with much of its income

The move is a major shift in America's counter-narcotics drive in Afghanistan.

In interviews with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which is due to release the report later this week, two American generals serving in Afghanistan said that major traffickers with proven links to the insurgency have been put on the "joint integrated prioritised target list", the New York Times reported.

That means they have been given the same target status as insurgent leaders, and can be captured or killed at any time.

It quoted one of the generals as telling the committee: "We have a list of 367 'kill or capture' targets, including 50 nexus targets who link drugs and the insurgency."

The generals were not identified in the Senate report, the paper said.

Poppy destruction

Opium trafficking provides the Taliban with much of its income

The US has put 50 Afghans

For many years, US policy in Afghanistan had focused on destroying poppy crops.

But in March Richard Holbrooke, the US envoy to the region, said that US efforts to eradicate opium poppy crops in Afghanistan have been "wasteful and ineffective".

He said efforts to eradicate poppy cultivation had failed to make an impact on the Taliban insurgents' ability to raise money from the drugs trade.

The southern Afghan province of Helmand is the main producer of Afghan opium, which accounts for more than 90% of the global supply.

( By http://news.bbc.co.uk)