BP's progress drilling a relief well may put it within striking range of the blown-out Macondo well in as little as two weeks, independent analysts said Tuesday, stoking hopes that the devastating Gulf oil spill could be stopped nearly a month earlier than anticipated.

While BP has not adjusted its early August timetable for completing the first of two relief wells boring toward the Macondo more than two miles beneath the Gulf of Mexico seabed, independent drilling engineers and some energy analysts said the company could be in a position to intercept the damaged well and begin the critical kill operation within 14 days.

"Two weeks might be reasonable," said Darryl Bourgoyne, director of the petroleum engineering research and technology transfer laboratory at Louisiana State University, though he added the company still has many steps to complete first.

Equity analysts with Pritchard Capital Partners were even more optimistic, saying in a note to investors Tuesday the relief well could reach its target in eight to 10 days, with the oil flow stopped relatively quickly afterward.

"Although the operator is conservatively saying August, discussions with experts in well control and relief operations have us convinced that the probability is high that Macondo is no longer flowing within a fortnight, setting up a nice rally for energy as a whole," the note said.

900 feet away

BP said work on the wells has not been impeded by Tropical Storm Alex, now forecast to strike near the Texas-Mexico border as a hurricane late tonight.

BP officials have reported brisk, hitch-free progress drilling the first relief well, which began May 2 and has drilled to a measured depth of 16,770 feet, according to BP's most recent report on Monday.

More for you Business Storm means delay in new oil collection

It is now being drilled vertically about 20 feet from the Macondo, which reaches a total depth of 18,000 feet, including 5,000 feet of Gulf seawater. Measured depth is the total length of the well bore, including horizontal turns, and not its distance from the surface of the water.

The BP media office said Tuesday the company doesn't yet have an exact depth for the planned intersect, but BP Senior Vice President Kent Wells said in a technical briefing Monday that drilling was 900 feet away from its intended target.

A&M prof optimistic

Drilling the next length of well will be the most exacting and time-consuming, however, since drillers may have to have to take as many as 12 more ranging runs, in which electromagnetic tools are used to determine the Macondo's exact position, Wells said. Each of those runs could take a half day. Also, operators have to install a final section of well lining.

Often, relief wells make one or more passes before hitting their target. Last year, for instance, a relief well attempting to intersect the blown-out Montara well in the Timor Sea off Australia bypassed the well four times before finally making contact.

But drilling experts agreed with BP's assessment that the company should be able to successfully intercept the well quickly once it is in range, mainly because the company will have been able to triangulate the Macondo's position with the ranging tools.

"I would be surprised if they didn't hit it in the first or second try," said Gene Beck, an associate professor of petroleum engineering at Texas A&M University, who also said a two-week time frame for completion was feasible.

2nd well a backup

The relief well is seen as the last recourse for permanently closing off the Macondo well, a task that has stumped the best and brightest of the oil industry since a gas surge caused the well to blow out April 20, destroying the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and killing 11 workers.

Once the relief well makes contact with the Macondo, BP will pump heavy drilling fluid down the relief well and into the Macondo to create a pressure column weighty enough to hold down the flow of oil. Then, operators will install a cement plug to stop the well for good.

BP is drilling a second relief well that has reached a depth of about 12,000 feet.

Beck said the most conservative course would be for BP to wait until both wells are in position to drill into the Macondo simultaneously, allowing more capacity for pumping in drilling mud.

"It's probably three to four weeks behind," Beck said of the second well, "It would put them on the early August time frame."

A BP spokeswoman said Tuesday that the second well is strictly a backup in case the first well is unsuccessful.

Complicating factors

The kill operation will pose the biggest challenges and risks, Beck and Bourgoyne said. Uncertainty about the path of oil and gas within the well means BP doesn't know how much mud pressure it will need to overcome the flow.

Depending on how BP decides to crack into the Macondo, a wrong move could increase the flow path, worsening the blowout and requiring more mud.

Another complicating factor is the possibility that the pipe in the middle of the well, called casing, may have been damaged during the original blowout.

High pressures needed to overpower the oil flow could collapse the casing. While that could have the fortuitous effect of causing the well to cave in on itself, it could also complicate the kill, Bourgoyne said.

In his Monday briefing, Wells said BP is preparing for various contingencies, including intersecting the Macondo ahead of schedule. The company has 44,000 barrels of mud waiting in vessels on the surface, he said.

monica.hatcher@chron.com