Box to contain oil spill in Gulf has been placed over leak, BP reports - AP

[WillyT]

Box to contain oil spill in Gulf has been placed over leak, BP reports
By The Associated Press
May 07, 2010, 5:08PM

<snip>

A spokesman for BP PLC says a 100-ton concrete-and-steel box has been placed over a massive oil leak at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico and is settling down into the mud.

BP spokesman Bill Salvin said Friday it may take as many as 12 hours for the containment box to settle in place but everything appears to be going as planned.

If the box settles properly, crews will then turn their attention to hooking up a pipe to pump the oil out. Salvin cautions though that there are still many challenges ahead as BP makes this first-of-its-kind attempt.

Officials have said it may take two days for crews to hook the device up to a tanker on the surface and begin to siphon off the spewing oil.

<snip>

Link: http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/box_to_contain_oil_spill_in_gu.html

Hoping for the best. We'll see...

:shrug:

[slackmaster]

1. Here's to hoping it works

:toast:

[thereismore]

2. I root for the corporation at the moment! nt

[hlthe2b]

10. ditto... as much as I hate the oil corps right now....

I am rooting for BP--at least for the moment.

[Brickbat]

3. I find this process fascinating. Thanks for the update.

[WillyT]

11. You Are Quite Welcome !!!

:hi:

[HysteryDiagnosis]

4. Dialup warning!! Finally, some good news from a bad player... not to change the subject

but have you ever seen how massive these rigs are? Here are two pics of Thunderhorse, one stable, the other listing for some reason...

[madmax]

6. Godspeed and Good Luck

We're going to need all the help we can get.

[madmax]

7. Magnificent

Hope it can SUCK. Not being snarky either.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

9. I don't know if this rig is going to be onsite, it is just one of the more

impressive ones I have heard of... probably hard to parallel park.

[madmax]

14. lol nt

[Strelnikov_]

12. Production Platform - 6% of US domestic production

The Thunder Horse production platform is the largest moored semi-submersible oil platform in the world, located in 1,920 meters (6,300 ft) of water in the Mississippi Canyon Block 778/822, about 150 miles (240 km) southeast of New Orleans.

Construction costs were around five billion USD,<6> and the platform is expected to operate for 25 years.

The hull section was constructed by DSME in South Korea and delivered in 2004 to Corpus Christi, Texas aboard MV Blue Marlin for completion.<7> Thunder Horse was completed at Kiewit Offshore Services in nearby Ingleside, Texas.

In July 2005, Thunder Horse was evacuated in the face of Hurricane Dennis. After the hurricane passed, the platform was listing badly. Inspection teams found no hull damage — Thunder Horse had not taken on water from a leak through its hull. Rather, an incorrectly plumbed, 6-inch length of pipe had allowed water to flow freely among several ballast tanks. That began a chain of events that caused the platform to tip into the water.<8> The event boosted world oil prices because of speculation of further oil shortages. The platform was fully righted about a week after Hurricane Dennis, but BP announced that commercial production had been delayed.<9> The platform was struck almost directly by Hurricane Katrina six weeks later, but was not damaged.

Initially envisaged to process at its peak 200 million cubic feet (5,700,000 m3) of natural gas and 250 thousand barrels (40×10^3 m3) of oil equivalent per day, BP says that it is now exceeding that.

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

13. Thunderhorse??? The internet is so weird.

Yesterday I was on Facebook and found out my Native American Indian name is.... Thunder Horse.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

17. Please do read up on.....

synchronicity

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronicity

This article is about the philosophical concept. For other uses, see Synchronicity (disambiguation).
Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated occurring together in a meaningful manner. To count as synchronicity, the events should be unlikely to occur together by chance.
The concept does not question, or compete with, the notion of causality. Instead, it maintains that just as events may be grouped by cause, they may also be grouped by their meaning. Since meaning is a complex mental construction, subject to conscious and subconscious influence, not every correlation in the grouping of events by meaning needs to have an explanation in terms of cause and effect.

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

19. O...K...

Thanks!

[HysteryDiagnosis]

20. You speak Ubuntu.... how grand.... strangely enough it is my "other"

operating system.

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

22. It is a great operating system

Mine is Ultimate Edition 2.6 Lucid Lynx 10.04 64 bit.

The only thing I wish I could do with Linux is ZOOM with my Microsoft Wireless Keyboard, but I'll settle with Windows key+Mouse Scroll.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

25. Take a look in here....

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=60077

[HughMoran]

5. I hope it works

[flamingdem]

8. here's hoping that works, NEXT end all offshore drilling nt

[dems_rightnow]

15. 100 tons s/b good

THAT'S going to sink in deep!

[flyarm]

16. and if it is leaking all around it ..are you going to know?? Hell no..is what environ people are

telling us in Fla..BP is in major cover up mode as is our government!

Count on that!!

from someone who lives directly on the Gulf.

[WillyT]

18. Hmm... You Bring Up A Great Point...

Are we relying solely on BP's submersibles to see/know what's going on?

Does NOAA or the Coast Guard have submersibles for independent verification?

:shrug:

:hi:

[Junkdrawer]

23. That was what I was thinking today. If BP says it plugged the leak "85%".....

who's to know? The claim will take a lot of pressure off BP and by now there's so much oil that no one can tell the old from the new.

It's not like DemocracyNow can send independent cameras down to verify the claim.

[WeDidIt]

21. Here's hoping BP isn't lying to us

I want independent confirmation of ANYTHING they say.

[flyarm]

24. Bp and our government have been lying to us from the get go..so nowwwww you think they are going to

tell the truth? BP has hired all the Biggest PR groups to do one hell of a cover up..they are keeping reporters out of Hellicopters and from flying over the oil ..any you think nowwwwww they are going to tell the fucking truth??????????

They have kept info from all the biggest environ groups..in Fact so much so, that huge environ groups and conservation groups and those who are preparing to save the wildlife in Fla have told the Obama admins they will not wait for any more bogus orders from BP or take any more bullshit from the bastards who did this to our Gulf..it was even on the local news in Tampa/St Pete. And that was pretty much their words from our local news!

They are all fucking liars! And they are all covering their own assses while our marine life and wildlife and our Gulf is dying!

They all shit in the same damn pot..wake up!

[TheWatcher]

26. Unfortunately, it looks like it hasn't worked as hoped.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8296977#8297009

Since this has never been tried, there was not much of guarantee it would.

Let's hope that something else can be done.