BP starts burning oil from leaking ruptured well

NEW ORLEANS: BP began burning oil siphoned from a ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico early on Wednesday as part of its plans to more than triple the amount of crude it can stop from reaching the sea, the company said.

BP PLC said oil and gas siphoned from the well is drawn to a semi-submersible drilling rig on the ocean surface. Once that gas reaches the rig, it is mixed with compressed air, shot down a specialized boom made by Schlumberger Ltd. and ignited at sea.

It's the first time this particular burner has been deployed in the Gulf of Mexico.

BP officials previously said they believed the burner system could incinerate anywhere from 210,000 gallons (nearly 800,000 liters) of oil to 420,000 gallons (1.6 million liters) of oil daily once it's fully operational.

The company did not say how much oil the new system has burned. It said work to optimize the new system was still ongoing.

Under pressure from the Coast Guard, the energy firm is attempting to expand its ability to trap leaking oil before it reaches the water. Already, oil and gas are being siphoned from a containment cap sitting over the well head and flowing to a drill ship sitting above it in the Gulf of Mexico.

Adding the burner is part of BP's plan to expand its containment system so it can capture as much as 2.2 million gallons (8.3 million liters) of oil a day by late June, or nearly 90 per cent of what a team of government scientists have estimated is the maximum flow out the well.