BP has said that at present it has ruled out any E&P activity within the MC252 reservoir where the plugged Macondo well that exploded in April is situated.
At a press conference in New Orleans on Friday, Doug Suttles, BP’s chief operating officer for Exploration & Production, responded to two questions about possible future development opportunities within the MC252 reservoir, saying:
“And you can imagine what we’ve been focused on is the response right now. So we haven’t even thought about what we’re going to do with this reservoir and this field some day.”
Later he acknowledged that there are substantial oil and gas reserves in the reservoir, adding that BP would have to “think about what to do with that at some point.”
Conscious of its current status in public opinion and in the eye of the US government, BP was keen to reiterate Shuttles’ comments saying in a statement that “Mr. Suttles made clear this morning, BP’s present focus is entirely on the response effort in the Gulf of Mexico and the future use of the reservoir is not currently under consideration.”
“Mr. Suttles also emphasised that neither the original wellbore, which was successfully cemented, nor either of the two relief wells would be used as part of any future development,” the statement added.
BP on Thursday completed cementing operations of the MC252 well as part of the static kill procedure. The company is monitoring the well in order to confirm the effectiveness of the procedure.
