'Static kill' mud starts flowing into BP well

[spanone]

The static kill is underway. Whether it will kill, slightly impede, or merely pester BP's Macondo well remained unknown late Tuesday, as engineers and scientists at BP's headquarters in suburban Houston scrutinized pressure readings from the hole in the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.

Federal officials huddled in BP's operations center are trying to manage expectations, saying that even if the static kill goes as hoped, Macondo won't be kaput until it is intercepted and cemented by a relief well that's been three months in the drilling.

"You want to make sure it's really dead dead dead. Don't want anything to rise out of the grave," Energy Secretary Steven Chu told The Washington Post late Tuesday afternoon.

BP initiated the process of pumping mud into the blown-out Macondo well at about 4 p.m. Tuesday. The static kill is not a quick operation by design, pumping mud at a leisurely rate of 2 barrels per minute. About 2,000 barrels will be needed to fill the well, engineers have calculated.

Ideally, the heavy mud will cause the pressure in the well to drop to zero -- but that alone won't mean the well is dead, according to federal scientists. The well could be playing dead. For example, when the mud will travels into the hot environment of the rock formation 2 1/2 miles below the seafloor, the heat could cause the mud to change form and allow the Macondo reservoir to "push back," as Chu put it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/03/AR2010080300431_pf.html

[Subdivisions]

1. '...2 barrels per minute. About 2,000 barrels will be needed...'

Good, it should be killed by tomorrow morning at that rate.

[spanone]

3. let's hope so.

[Posteritatis]

4. They'll still need to do the 'bottom' kill too

That should be about a week from now, I believe, as the relief wells hit the bottom of the shaft and they start filling those.

Still a Good Thing.

[jaxx]

5. I read that they will speed it up some if all is well.

And for gawds sakes let's hope all is well.

[Subdivisions]

6. Agreed, my friend. n/t

[midnight]

2. It makes you wonder if these people ever stop to think about

the simplicity life could offer if we stopped this oil economy. It just seems like a poverty maker.