BP PLC Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said the company determined the "top kill" had failed after it spent three days pumping heavy drilling mud into the crippled well 5,000 feet underwater. More than 1.2 million gallons of mud was used, but most of it escaped out of the damaged riser.
But BP has another plan.
Suttles said BP is already preparing for the next attempt to stop the leak that began after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded in April, killing 11 people.
The company plans to use robot submarines to cut off the damaged riser from which the oil is leaking, and then try to cap it with a containment valve. The effort is expected to take between four and seven days.
"We're confident the job will work but obviously we can't guarantee success," Suttles said of the new plan, declining to handicap the likelihood it will work.
He said that cutting off the damaged riser isn't expected to cause the flow rate of leaking oil to increase significantly.
Confidence, but no guarantee of success. If BP guaranteed that their next plan would work, would you believe them? What if the next plan doesn't work? Why do I doubt that the next plan will work? If the powers at BP are confident that the next plan will work, why didn't they try to cap the well with a containment valve, before they tried the top kill?
The relief well won't be operational until August.
You have to be pretty gullible these days to believe anything BP says.
ReplyDeleteOrmonde, from about two days after the explosion, those of us who wanted to know, realized that BP was not being honest. I fail to understand why any state or federal agency didn't verify BP's information.
ReplyDeleteI heard a Cajun on the radio yesterday say "BP stands for Bayou Polluters!"
ReplyDeleteWhy would anyone believe anything put out by a corporation's PR department?
ReplyDeleteThey were "confident" about the top kill. They said it had a 60 to 70 per cent chance of success.
ReplyDeleteThey could try stuffing the fat heads of BP executives into the damaged riser and see if that works.
Has anyone thought of plugging the leak with BP executives? Their byproducts alone (of which they appear to be filled to capacity) just might do the trick.
ReplyDeleteBP has no idea what to do to stop the gusher. We may be at the limits of technology for a fix sooner than the relief well operation sometime in August.
ReplyDeleteHas anyone thought of plugging the leak with BP executives?
Tobias, only about 20 other people have made the suggestion to me, but without your by-product angle.
"why didn't they try to cap the well with a containment valve, before they tried the top kill? "
ReplyDelete$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.
ohGod.... my wv: caperstrng
cap 'er strng boys. quit efffing around.
Mimi, sadly, I,too, am beginning to think BP has no idea how to stop the gushing oil well. We probably need to look outside the oil industry to find a solution. Like Tobias and Cathy, I think the next solution they try should be stuffing the oil executives in the well. If that doesn't work, at least we will feel a little better.
ReplyDeleteI woke to this news Sunday morning, and it just broke my heart. Then I led the Prayers of the People [Form IV]. When I got to "Give us all a reverence for the earth as your own creation, that we may use its resources rightly ...," my voice cracked, and for a moment I thought I might just "lose it" in tears for what's happening in that marvelous, fragile part of the world. I grieve this damn thing.
ReplyDeleteI find that sometimes it's really difficult to go on as if everything is the same with the massive ruination of God's creation happening just south of me. Creatures dying, livelihoods affected perhaps for years to come. It's so very tragic.
ReplyDelete