Over the summer BP, the British energy group, drilled the deepest well ever sunk by an oil and gas company. The Tiber well in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, about 250 miles south-east of Houston, starts at the bottom of 1,259 metres (more than 4,000ft) of water, and goes down almost 9,500 metres more below the sea bed, to a total depth of 10,685 metres, or more than 35,000 feet. That is further below sea level than the height of Mount Everest.
BP announced the well as a success, saying it had discovered a “giant” field with at least 3bn barrels of oil in place. It believes it is opening up a new area for oil development in the Gulf of Mexico, in rocks deeper than the layers that have so far yielded most of the region’s production.
