BP Engineers Making Little Headway on Leaking Well

[Botany]

Source: NY Times

HOUSTON — BP engineers struggled Friday to plug a gushing oil well a mile under the sea, but as of late in the
day they had made little headway in stemming the flow.

Amid mixed messages about problems and progress, the effort — called a “top kill” — continued for a third day,
with engineers describing a painstaking process of trying to plug the hole, using different weights of mud and sizes
of debris like golf balls and tires, and then watching and waiting. They cannot use brute force because they risk
making the leak worse if they damage the pipes leading down to the well.

Nor were there perfect answers Friday about the status of the top kill effort. For the second day, public statements
early in the day from BP and government officials seemed to suggest progress. Later in the day, they acknowledged
that the effort was no closer to succeeding than when they started.

“We’re going to stay with this as long as we need to,” Doug Suttles, BP’s chief operating officer for exploration and
production, said late Friday afternoon. “We’re not going to rush.”

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/us/29spill.html?pagewanted=1&hpw&adxnnlx=1275134694-snbZ1FP%20ubjiH0azvV/Rgw

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[dipsydoodle]

1. Any headway

is better than none.

[greiner3]

2. I wonder;

If all the sexual innuendos in this story are intended or not.

[dipsydoodle]

4. Well - I think we all do similar almost by accident at times

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=191&topic_id=30936&mesg_id=30942 :)

[sasquuatch55]

5. It appears, looking at the live feed, it hasn't worked.

nt

[dgibby]

3. T. Boone Pickens predicted it would fail.

He told Larry King this week that the only real chance was the relief well, and he was quite confident that would work.

[niceypoo]

6. BP is trying to buy a little more time

Keep moving the goal posts

[Botany]

7. I think they know it the plug the leaks the pressure in the pipe/well

will explode "the plumbing"

[tranche]

16. The goal posts are the relief wells. There is no other permanent solution.

Everything else is just an attempt at temporarily stopping the leak. They have acknowledged this. It is well known fact. It's not something that's pleasant to think about, but this will probably go on through the summer -- until the relief wells are completed.

[niceypoo]

8. Latest Attempt by BP to Plug Oil Leak in Gulf of Mexico Fails

Source: New York TImes

HOUSTON — BP engineers failed again to plug the gushing oil well on Saturday, a technician working on the project said, representing yet another setback in a series of unsuccessful procedures the company has tried a mile under the sea to stem the flow spreading into the Gulf of Mexico.

BP made a third attempt at what is termed the “junk shot” Friday night, a procedure that involves pumping odds and ends like plastic cubes, knotted rope, and golf balls into the blowout preventer, the five-story safety device atop the well. The maneuver is complementary to the heavily scrutinized effort known as a “top kill,”which began four days ago and involves pumping heavy mud into the well to counteract the push of the escaping oil. If the well is sealed, the company plans to then fill it with cement.

*snip

“Right now, I would not be optimistic,” the technician, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak publicly about the effort. But he added, that if another attempt at the junk shot were to succeed, “that would turn things around.”

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/us/30spill.html

[charlesg]

9. That 70 percent chance sure is getting smaller

[marylanddem]

10. You know what's f**k'd up?

That we have to have an anonymous source to the NYT relay this rather than BP admit to it officially.

[charlesg]

12. If BP owned the professors, the spill would only be 1,000 barrels a day

The rest is nature doing what it does naturally.

[global1]

11. Technician Who Spoke On Condition Of Anonymity Because He Is Not Authorized To Speak Publicly .....

about the effort. Do you believe that? Come on - this has been said countless times since the beginning of this disaster 'not being authorized to speak publicly about the effort'.

If this is true this 'so called technician' is putting his job on the line by talking out of school. I happen to believe that this is a controlled method used by BP to put out the news and avoid confrontation of news conferences.

Is my tinfoil hat on too tight or do others suspect the same as I do?

[marylanddem]

13. You know, you might be right.

[joanmj]

14. A news conference by BP is about to happen....

but this does not look good!:puke: :mad: :argh:

[Delphinus]

15. Any updates?

I don't see a new thread on the BP news conference for Sat., 05/29.

[wordpix]

17. that's a pretty clean beach they brought O to

why not have him take a tour of the oil soaked wetlands with the dead and dying nesting birds?