New Orleans, Louisiana (CNN) -- Marking four days since a sunken well in the Gulf of Mexico stopped gushing oil, the federal on-scene coordinator warned Monday that responders should not get too comfortable.
"With an operation like this, your biggest enemy is complacency," said Coast Guard Rear Adm. Paul Zukunft.
Testing on the recently capped well will continue until 4 p.m. ET, officials said Monday.
On Sunday, Thad Allen, the federal government's oil spill response director, said that testing had revealed a "seep a distance from the well." But the federal government said Monday it had received satisfactory answers from BP regarding the seep, so testing of the well could proceed.
Allen said Monday that a federal science team and BP representatives had discussed several issues during a Sunday night conference call, including the seep and "possible observation of methane over the well."
"During the conversation, the federal science team got the answers they were seeking and the commitment from BP to meet their monitoring and notification obligations," Allen said in a statement.
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Allen ordered the company to notify the government if other seeps were found.
"When seeps are detected, you are directed to marshal resources, quickly investigate, and report findings to the government in no more than four hours," Allen said in a letter to BP Chief Managing Director Bob Dudley released late Sunday.
On Monday, Allen noted that he had alerted BP on Sunday to "a number of unanswered questions about the monitoring systems they committed to as a condition of the U.S. government extending the well integrity test." After the conference call, he said he authorized BP to continue the integrity test for another 24 hours.
"I restated our firm position that this test will only continue if they continue to meet their obligations to rigorously monitor for any signs that this test could worsen the overall situation," he said. "At any moment, we have the ability to return to the safe containment of the oil on the surface until the time the relief well is completed and the well is permanently killed."
In his letter Sunday, Allen gave BP 24 hours to provide the containment plan and schedule that the company would put in place if testing was suspended.
BP's statement Monday said the company was carrying out extensive monitoring activities around the well site. Allen did not provide further details about where the leak was spotted or how big it is.
Some seepage from the ocean floor is normal in the Gulf of Mexico, according to University of Houston professor Don Van Nieuwenhuise. When asked by CNN meteorogist Chad Myers, "Do 40 million gallons of oil naturally leak into the Gulf of Mexico every year without wells even being there, just in cracks in the surface, " Van Nieuwenhuise responded, "I don't know what the actual number is but that sounds about right. All over the Gulf of Mexico, you have formations that actually leak to the surface."
"A lot of oil that's formed naturally, by the Earth, ends up escaping or leaking to the surface in the form of natural seeps and yes, there are a lot of these all around the world," he said.
Allen said Sunday that testing would determine whether keeping the well capped would be the right solution. Pressure testing results in the well have been lower than expected, he said, which means oil could be leaking out from below.
"While we are pleased that no oil is currently being released into the Gulf of Mexico and want to take all appropriate action to keep it that way, it is important that all decisions are driven by the science," he said. "Ultimately, we must ensure no irreversible damage is done which could cause uncontrolled leakage from numerous points on the sea floor."
Pressure inside the well "continues to rise slowly," BP said in a statement Monday.
BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said Sunday that the recently recapped oil well could remain closed until the relief well is completed if tests remained favorable.
"No one associated with this whole activity wants to see any more oil flow into the Gulf of Mexico," he said.
Rep. Ed Markey, who has been a vocal critic of BP's response to the gusher, said Sunday that the company could have another motivation for wanting to keep the well capped.
"If the well remains fully shut in until the relief well is completed, we may never have a fully accurate determination of the flow rate from this well. If so, BP -- which has consistently underestimated the flow rate -- might evade billions of dollars of fines," Markey, D-Massachusetts, said in a letter to Allen released Sunday.
Using ships on the surface to collect 100 percent of the gushing oil would allow scientists to calculate the flow rate -- a figure that the government would use to determine how much to fine BP, Markey said.
That contradicts what Allen said on July 9 -- that once the well was sealed, scientists could get the most accurate flow rate to date based on the pressure in the well.
No oil has gushed out since Thursday when BP closed all the valves in a new custom-made cap that was lowered into place earlier in the week.
That lull in oil flow has jump-started the federal claims process. Kenneth Feinberg, the man in charge of disbursing the $20 billion in funds BP is setting aside to resolve Gulf oil spill-related claims, said Monday that now that the oil leak has apparently been stopped, it will be a lot easier and quicker to get a handle on the universal claims.
At a question and answer discussion in Washington, Feinberg said it has been difficult to come up with a budget because officials did not know how pervasive the spill would become. "Now that the oil has stopped, with my fingers crossed, we will quickly come up with an overall budget," he said.
Feinberg said the fund was being established by BP with the support of the Obama administration as an alternative to years of protracted litigation, and said the challenge is to make the reparations process attractive enough so people will voluntarily seek compensation from it.
Meanwhile, oil skimmers continue to clean up the contaminated Gulf. Since June, the number of skimmers has quadrupled, Zukunft said.
In addition, BP also plans to conduct tests known as ranging runs on one of its relief wells, which company officials have said could intersect the ruptured well by the end of July and provide the permanent solution to the leak. BP then plans to pump mud and cement down to kill the ruptured well.
Engineers and scientists have intensified monitoring of the well, poring over images and data collected by robots, sonar scans, and seismic and acoustic examinations. A government ship is in the area, fitted with equipment for detecting methane gas, which would be an indication of a leak.
In the coming weeks, BP also plans to bring in two more oil collection ships in addition to the two in the Gulf, bringing containment capacity to 80,000 barrels (about 3.4 million gallons) of oil a day, more than high-end estimates of how much oil had been leaking. Zukunft said the Helix Producer and the Q4000, two of the ships disconnected from the well to put on the containment cap, could be quickly re-connected within hours if scientists decide that's necessary.
Meanwhile, a worker who was onboard the Deepwater Horizon oil rig when it exploded testified before investigators Monday.
The hearing is part of a Coast Guard and Bureau of Ocean and Energy Management investigation of the April 20 explosion, which killed 11 workers and sent oil gushing into the Gulf. The hearing is scheduled to last all week.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/07/19/gulf.oil.disaster/index.html?hpt=T2
