Meanwhile, environmentalists reported new, unconfirmed sightings Tuesday of what appeared to be surface oil over several miles in Chandeleur Sound, all the way on the other side of the Mississippi River's delta.
A state official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of a continuing Coast Guard investigation, said the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries traced the emulsified oil on the west side of the river to its apparent source at West Delta Block 117. He said tests by a state-contracted lab confirmed that was the source of the oil.
Three discharges of oil from Anglo-Suisse Offshore Partners' Platform E facility were reported to the Coast Guard, records show. The first came Friday, with a report of a "downed platform" and half a gallon of spilled crude during operations to plug and abandon the well.
Another report Sunday said the same incident had spilled 1.33 gallons of oil. A third report on Monday of 1.89 gallons of spilled oil was classified by the Coast Guard as "operator error."
Late Tuesday night, Houston-based Anglo-Suisse issued a statement acknowledging that the Coast Guard believes it may be responsible for the spill and accepting responsibility for cleanup. Anglo-Suisse said it was surprised because the well is "non-producing and has been monitored closely for the last six months." The company said it had reconnected the wellhead structure Tuesday morning and fully shut it in by 8:30 p.m.
The company said it was the 12th well in the area to undergo plugging and abandonment operations. Crews have been monitoring the site since September and didn't report any oil discharge until the end of last week.
Wildlife and Fisheries officials found the source of the oil Monday evening and encountered workers in a boat trying to restore a cap on the well using a remotely operated submarine.
"Well-capping went out of control," the state official said.
The well in question is in shallow water, about 210 feet deep, but the specter of any well-capping accident comes at the worst possible time for federal regulators, who have just approved the first four deepwater drilling projects since last spring's BP oil disaster — mostly predicated on the oil companies' assurances that they can now cap their wells quickly in case of a blowout.
