BP's Relief Well Effort Delayed by U.S. Concerns Over Risk of Oil Release

[steve2470]

Source: Bloomberg

BP Plc’s relief well and bottom-kill procedure, aimed at permanently plugging its Gulf of Mexico Macondo well, is suspended until the company completes an analysis of complications that might result in a new oil leak.

BP determined that 1,000 barrels of oil remain trapped in the well after cement was pumped in from the top earlier this month. Now U.S. officials fear some of that could be released, or new leaks may form, when the company pumps in more mud and cement into the bottom of the well for the final plug.

The London-based company will probably need until Aug. 17 to come up with a plan for the so-called bottom kill that won’t result in an uncontrolled release of crude, National Incident Commander Thad Allen said during a conference call with reporters yesterday.

“The risk right now is the 1,000 barrels, and BP will have directions to mitigate that,” he said. “We will take care of that before we do any bottom kill.”

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-15/bp-s-relief-well-effort-delayed-by-u-s-concerns-over-risk-of-oil-release.html

[peacetalksforall]

1. And while they are doing that perhaps someone can figure out how to prevent the next

glacier breaks. Relevant, because of the new drilling grounds and fights or wars.

[backscatter712]

2. At least now they can take their time.

The leak's plugged, at least on top, at least for now, so the techies might as well take their time and do the bottom kill right.

[northernlights]

3. not really...

hurricane season is breathing down their necks. But yes,they need to do it right.

[backscatter712]

4. On the bright side, they have plans in place for dealing with hurricanes.

Now, at any time, they can put a storm plug in the relief well, disconnect, get out of dodge, ride out the storm, then come back after it blows over.

[wand94nard]

5. BP and Obama

I went one telonu.com to do some research on a company I am applying to for a job. TelOnU.com is site where people can post their experiences with a company or business.

Anyways, I looked up BP just for the hell of it:

http://www.telonu.com/reviews/bp-0?type=Tells

WOW you should see what people are coming forward with on BP. I agree, BP really screwed up and should pay for the clean-up and the damage.

I think Obama is doing and OK job of dealing with the ‘BP Gulf Oil Spill of 2010’, I think the Government moved as quickly as any large Government can. BP misled everyone on the severity of the oil flow.

The fact is, that within days of when the tragedy was started (which was at the time just described as an ‘oil rig fire’ – not as an ‘oil spill’ the size of California in the Gulf of Mexico) the government was involved and pushed for emergency services to start.

Even though is started as a minor oil fire/rig explosion, the government did take it seriously and brought the coast guard in immediately.

Has the clean-up effort been going well, certainly there have been a lot of mistakes and finger pointing, but also remember that now the scale of the disaster is coming to light (something BP has been working hard to conceal) – emergency services, clean-up crews, state and local governments are learning as they go how to deal with a mess this big.

The BP Gulf Oil Spill of 2010 will go down as the largest man-made environmental disaster or the last century – something of a size and scale never dealt with by any government. Both the USA is going to take a hit, but so will the British Governement who will have to prop up BP and the cost of the clean-up and the damages.