Gulf Oil Leak Plugged? 611
RobHart writes "The LA Times is reporting that the Gulf oil leak appears to have been plugged by the 'top kill.' 'Thad Allen, who is coordinating the government response, says the well still has low pressure, but cement will be used to cap the well permanently as soon as the pressure hits zero.'"
Ixtoc and BP disaster comparison (Score:5, Interesting)
An interesting comparison between the 1979 Ixtoc oil disaster and the BP disaster. Note that indeed Transocean and Sedco merged in 1999.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=127_1274931222 [liveleak.com]
Well they are FIRING some of them... (Score:5, Interesting)
The person at the top of this mess in the US gov (the director of mineral resources) got invited to resign (and did). Im sure that a few of the others are going to follow her example.
Re:Little Dutch Boy (Score:4, Interesting)
Why didn't they call Aquaman? This is probably the only time where his superpower would actually be useful.
Re:in other news, cementing the BP CEO has started (Score:2, Interesting)
Obama only drinks beer for photo-ops aimed at extracting his foot from his mouth. Occasionally he might also chug one back at a bowling alley to show that he's really a common man after all....
While repeating his "Wall Street and Main Street" meme. It's such an empty series of repetition devoid of all meaning, as evidenced by the (radio) commercials I've heard that have adopted it. I think they were local branches of multinational banks and perhaps also financial advisor firms who wanted to capitalize on the latest buzz phrase.
Re:Too early (Score:5, Interesting)
My understanding was that there was a chance it might make things worse. If the mud didn't actually slow the leak, but was pushed out as fast as it was applied, there was the fear it might further damage the already broken valve. So, rather than a partially open valve somewhat checking the flow of oil, you'd have a fully open pipe.
Re:in other news, cementing the BP CEO has started (Score:5, Interesting)
You can argue that a new CEO won't want the same fate, so will enforce higher safety standards, but CEOs are judged by the money made for the shareholders, not by their safety record. If a CEO gets replaced over safety for political reasons, but made a crap-ton of money as CEO, you can bet they're not going to end up in a soup kitchen..
Re:in other news, cementing the BP CEO has started (Score:3, Interesting)
A lot of the numbers I have seen sort of add together to the total cleanup cost and other liabilities to at least be in the range of $10 billion. They can pay that off in 6 months.
(I'm assuming several billion dollars of cleanup costs, and then also several billion for fisherman, and another several billion for the tourist industry)
They could probably afford to pay $50 billion (but I don't really see how the liabilities will get that high).
Re:Too early (Score:3, Interesting)
currently, the cnn.com alt view is what shows the top of the BOP view.
LoB
Re:Too early (Score:3, Interesting)
Speaking of generals... Was Red Adair's company (International Well Control, IIRC) ever called in on this? I mean, they have extensive experience plugging holes not only on land, but have assisted with deep sea blow-outs too, like the Ekofisk Bravo blow-out that was larger in scale, but capped after just a week.
Re:glad to see this (Score:5, Interesting)
This is BP's Rules, Not Ours [mediabistro.com]
Well there you go.. BP runs the American government..
Re:glad to see this (Score:3, Interesting)
In order to do that they would have had to cut through the riser and well casing and then opened up the BOP (Blow-out-preventer) to full bore to gain access; before we assumed that the BOP had at least partially choked off the well casing or the pipes had crimps from being bent. Opening up to full-bore could easily have made the leak 10 times worst for no guarantee of success. Doing the top kill meant they only had to hook into the choke & kill port on the BOP, using it for its designed purpose and pump in the mud. If the top-kill failed then they could at least return to the wells original leakage rate.
Re:Conspiracy Theories (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Hmm... (Score:3, Interesting)
Because the pipe didn't break off at the BOP; it fell over sideways.
Re:the goal was never (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow do you have no idea what you're talking about.
1) Relief wells can't be used to tap the oil. The last step in plugging the gusher with a relief well is to pump concrete into the relief well. It's surprisingly difficult to pump oil through concrete. And assuming top-kill actually worked, they still need to do a "bottom-kill", or risk the well blowing out again.
2) Relief wells aren't anywhere near ready yet. They're only about 1/2 way done.
Feel free to keep railing against multinational corps, but please don't make stuff up. It greatly weakens your argument.
Re:Too early (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm just eternally grateful for these BP heroes that have worked so many sleepless nights since this began in order to wrestle this thing under control. No one has ever had to deal with something like this before and by using their ingenuity and ability to adapt and innovate, they were able to accomplish a herculean feat. Yes, I'm being facetious.
I'm sure a lot of BP personnel (and yes, a lot of non-BP personnel) have indeed worked many sleepless nights since this began in order to wrestle this thing under control. And you are right that no one has ever had to deal with something like this before and by using their ingenuity and ability to adapt and innovate, they were able to accomplish a herculean feat.
So despite everything I think all these people have more than earned a massive THANK YOU and WELL DONE. I even think that they deserve to be called heroes. (Especially because the people that did all this probably had nothing to do with causing the disaster in the first place.)
"Fun" way to clean up the spill (Score:3, Interesting)
The US needs to basically say "If you have the needed stuff and can give us a plan you get to keep any oil you recover" and then cut the spill area into grid squares and say okay you say you can clean XK gallons so you can use these grid squares and you have these squares ect.
BP of course can buy the oil from the various folks at whatever price or maybe have their own folks scooping up oil.
Re:Too early (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm sure they're totally irrelevant to the point, but also that they'd wholeheartedly love to kick BPs ass for making them do all the work.
Snarky comments are part of keeping the political pressure on.
Re:in other news, cementing the BP CEO has started (Score:1, Interesting)
I'm for limiting CEO pay. I'm also for making them personally responsible. Why am I "for" both? Because at the moment, neither applies and there seems to be no indication that either one will apply anywhere in the near future. So I push for both. Once one of them succeeds, the equation will have changed and I'll need to reevaluate what additional changes I support, but for now I'm in support of just about anything that changes the current system.
Re:Too early (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:any of you watching the live stream? (Score:3, Interesting)
From the looks of it, the mud is working. The outflow's brown, not black, looks like it's mostly drilling mud blowing out of the pipe and not crude oil. That'd indicate the mud's stabilizing the pressure and stopping the flow of oil up the well, which is step 1. Step 2 is to pump concrete in below where they're injecting the mud, into an area where the well fluid's under pressure but now not flowing and blowing any plug away before it can harden. Step 3 happens after the plug's big enough and hardened: backing off on the drilling mud and seeing if the plug holds under well pressure or not.
Re:Too early (Score:3, Interesting)