NEW ORLEANS, April 22 (UPI) -- BP PLC was on the verge of announcing a significant oil discovery in the Gulf of Mexico when tragedy struck a drilling rig this week, an unnamed source says.
The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday a person familiar with the situation told it the oil producer was days away from making the "commercially attractive" find public. The source said the Macondo prospect, where the rig was drilling, contained "tens of millions of barrels" of oil reserves, the business newspaper said.
But then on Tuesday an explosion hit the Deepwater Horizon rig, which BP had leased from the operator, Transocean Ltd. of Switzerland, leaving 11 workers missing. It sank Thursday.
Experts say the rig, which had been reaching through 5,000 feet of water to a total depth of 8,350 feet, likely was done in by an uncontrolled release of fluids called a blowout, the Journal said. Analysts say it will cost more than $600 million to replace.
The Journal's source said if the Macondo field is ever developed, it would not have its own production platform. Instead, it would be connected to an existing one at BP's nearby Pompano field, the newspaper said.
