BP's top kill effort fails to plug Gulf oil leak
gimmesometruth27
St. Fuckin Louis Posts: 23,303
ok now what?? what is plan f???? what the hell do we do now??? bp says the next attempt will be risky but can fix it...we shall see...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gulf_oil_spill
ROBERT, La. – BP admitted defeat Saturday in its attempt to plug the Gulf of Mexico oil leak by pumping mud into a busted well, but said it's readying yet another approach to fight the spill after a series of failures.
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.
In the six weeks since the spill began, the company has failed in each attempt to stop the gusher, as estimates of how much is leaking grow more dire. It's the worst spill in U.S. history — exceeding even the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989 off the Alaska coast — dumping between 18 million and 40 million gallons into the Gulf, according to government estimates.
"This scares everybody, the fact that we can't make this well stop flowing, the fact that we haven't succeeded so far," Suttles said. "Many of the things we're trying have been done on the surface before, but have never been tried at 5,000 feet."
The company failed in the days after the spill to use robot submarines to close valves on the massive blowout preventer atop the damaged well, then two weeks later ice-like crystals clogged a 100-ton box the company tried placing over the leak. Earlier this week, engineers removed a mile-long siphon tube after it sucked up a disappointing 900,000 gallons of oil from the gusher.
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.
The permanent solution to the leak, a relief well currently being drilled, won't be ready until August, BP says.
Experts have said that a bend in the damaged riser likely was restricting the flow of oil somewhat, so slicing it off and installing a new containment valve is risky.
"If they can't get that valve on, things will get much worse," said Philip W. Johnson, an engineering professor at the University of Alabama.
Johnson said he thinks BP can succeed with the valve, but added: "It's a scary proposition."
Word that the top-kill had failed hit hard in the fishing community of Venice, La., near where oil first made landfall in large quanities almost two weeks ago.
"Everybody's starting to realize this summer's lost. And our whole lifestyle might be lost," said Michael Ballay, the 59-year-old manager of the Cypress Cove Marina.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gulf_oil_spill
ROBERT, La. – BP admitted defeat Saturday in its attempt to plug the Gulf of Mexico oil leak by pumping mud into a busted well, but said it's readying yet another approach to fight the spill after a series of failures.
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.
In the six weeks since the spill began, the company has failed in each attempt to stop the gusher, as estimates of how much is leaking grow more dire. It's the worst spill in U.S. history — exceeding even the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989 off the Alaska coast — dumping between 18 million and 40 million gallons into the Gulf, according to government estimates.
"This scares everybody, the fact that we can't make this well stop flowing, the fact that we haven't succeeded so far," Suttles said. "Many of the things we're trying have been done on the surface before, but have never been tried at 5,000 feet."
The company failed in the days after the spill to use robot submarines to close valves on the massive blowout preventer atop the damaged well, then two weeks later ice-like crystals clogged a 100-ton box the company tried placing over the leak. Earlier this week, engineers removed a mile-long siphon tube after it sucked up a disappointing 900,000 gallons of oil from the gusher.
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.
The permanent solution to the leak, a relief well currently being drilled, won't be ready until August, BP says.
Experts have said that a bend in the damaged riser likely was restricting the flow of oil somewhat, so slicing it off and installing a new containment valve is risky.
"If they can't get that valve on, things will get much worse," said Philip W. Johnson, an engineering professor at the University of Alabama.
Johnson said he thinks BP can succeed with the valve, but added: "It's a scary proposition."
Word that the top-kill had failed hit hard in the fishing community of Venice, La., near where oil first made landfall in large quanities almost two weeks ago.
"Everybody's starting to realize this summer's lost. And our whole lifestyle might be lost," said Michael Ballay, the 59-year-old manager of the Cypress Cove Marina.
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Post edited by Unknown User on
0
Comments
it runs out when it runs out.. thats my guess. *shrugs*
cant they lower some big giant open ended tank, place it open end down, over the broken part, attach a big hose to it and then pump the oil to a tanker or something.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
wasn't that their 'top hat' idea?
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
http://i.imgur.com/3JFae.jpg
Sounds similar to their original idea. Ice crystals formed and clogged it all up...
that'll come off with a little dawn soap, right?
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
funny how these southern states are all about keeping the government out of their lives, and now that they need federal assistance they have no problem asking for it...
the bottom line is this, if we can not plan for how to fix situations like this, then we should NOT be drilling and creating situations like this...you don't have a surgical procedure without a resaonable idea of the outcome of that procedure, same was we should not be drilling holes a mile deep in the ocean with no way to stop the bleeding..or in this case gusher..it is no longer a "spill"...it is a geyser..
also, with this massive destruction of the supply of crude, why are gas prices going DOWN!?!?!?!??? ever time there is a huge spike in gas prices it is due "to supply issues". now millions of barrels of crude are sitting out in the middle of the gulf of mexico and prices are going down...where are the speculators on this one?? perhaps the oil kings are throwing us a bone and giving us a break in exchange for fucking up our environment??
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
My guess is that prices of oil are not impacted since this well was never online so its not creating a supply issue. As for the conservatives, no one I have heard says that smaller government would have prevented this mess, and at the same time how does bigger government? I think the failure is an industry failure and a government failure since both create the demand, request and issue the permits, and make money off the process of energy being provided and sold and taxed. Honestly, I fail to see the politics of the issue other than media willfully ignoring the issue for as long as possible, and the White House's lack of leadership on the issue, and the industries CYA attitude in regards to who was going to step up and take ownership.
Its a mess, its horrible, it makes me sick. Having visited New Orleans for the first time a few weeks ago, watching the Presidential motorcade run by my hotel shuttling Obama to Venice, realizing this was going down then as a potentially huge ecological disaster in our time, and feeling so badly for everyone in the Gulf States....haven't they had enough bs this decade! And you ask how and why! But honestly all you can say is technology provided the ability to do this process without many failures for decades, and then one instance of major failure and there is no second chances. Reminds me of the statement regarding terrorism that you have to be right 100% of the time and they only have to be right once.
Its a tragedy. My criticisms (and now my hope) would be that the best minds brought in day 1 (now day 41)...after Obama started reducing NASA's influence on the future I have wondered if we haven't missed some golden opportunities in science and resources to pull together an Apollo 13 type of solution. Just seems we know less about our oceans than we do the universe.
a relief well fixed the problem 31 years ago ... it will be the same here ...
:twisted: :twisted:
Pathetic, eh? Fuckers. Its difficult not to outright hate the people whose greed and arrogance led them to build something that they could not contain in the event of problems.
it's the oil industry ... the sad part is that what most of the world is considering an environmntal disaster in the gulf is what we're doing daily in the tar sands ...
I know. The effects of the oil sands get disregarded because they are less overt and obviously catastrophic ... But its slow death just the same.
It was said on the news about a week ago that there is enough oil where they tapped that it would leak for about 160 years. Average of 2 human lifetimes.
9/29/04 Boston, 6/28/08 Mansfield, 8/23/09 Chicago, 5/15/10 Hartford
5/17/10 Boston, 10/15/13 Worcester, 10/16/13 Worcester, 10/25/13 Hartford
8/5/16 Fenway, 8/7/16 Fenway
EV Solo: 6/16/11 Boston, 6/18/11 Hartford,