Tube suctioning one-fifth of spewing oil

The tube inserted by BP into a ruptured oil pipe is sucking up about one-fifth of the crude spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, a top company official said yesterday.

BP's Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles told CNN that about 1,000 barrels of oil per day is being suctioned up by the tube, out of about 5,000 barrels that the company believes is gushing out daily.

"I'm really pleased we've had success now. We've actually had what we call this rise insertion tube working more than 24 hours now," he told CNN. "This morning we were producing over 1,000 barrels of oil into the drill ship. So it's good progress."

Mr Suttles acknowledged that most of the oil continues to spill into the open Gulf waters, but said he hoped to be able over time to increase the ratio of captured oil.

"This doesn't capture all of it. There's still oil coming out. But what we hope to do over the next 24 hours is continue to raise the rate, increase the rate coming out of that insertion tube and capture more and more of the flow," Mr Suttles said.

The tube insertion was the first tangible sign of success in more than three weeks of efforts to prevent at least 210,000 gallons of oil from spewing unabated into the sea each day and feeding a massive slick off the coast of Louisiana.

The four-inch diameter tube was inserted into the 21-inch leaking pipe using undersea robots over the weekend and finally managed to begin siphoning oil after some early glitches.

BP estimates that 5,000 barrels of oil each day are gushing into the Gulf, but independent experts have said that the amount could be as much as ten times higher.

Meanwhile, according to a Washington-based investigative group, BP has a record of flagrant safety violations at its US refineries.

The Centre for Public Integrity, a non-profit investigative journalism group, said its analysis showed two refineries owned by BP account for 97 per cent of all flagrant violations found in the US refining industry by inspectors over the past three years.

Most of BP's citations were classified as "egregious willful" by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the group said in its press release.

It noted that BP has been under scrutiny from the US worker safety group since its refinery in Texas City, Texas, exploded in March 2005, killing 15 workers.

The report said refinery inspection data obtained by the centre under the Freedom of Information Act showed that BP received a total of 862 citations between June 2007 and February 2010 for alleged violations at its refineries in Texas City and Toledo, Ohio.