'Top kill' fails to stop flow of oil, BP says

[Better Believe It]

'Top kill' fails to stop flow of oil, BP says
By the CNN Wire Staff
May 29, 2010

Venice, Louisiana (CNN) -- BP's "top kill" attempt to stop the flow of oil from a ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico failed, the company's chief operating officer said Saturday.

The oil giant has tried for days to stop the the largest oil spill in U.S. history by pumping heavy, mudlike drilling fluid into a ruptured oil well, a method known as "top kill."

The next option is to place a custom-built cap known as the "lower marine riser package" over the leak, the company's chief operating officer, Doug Suttles said. BP crews were working Saturday to ready the materials for that option should it become necessary, he said.

"We've been prepping that all along in case we need to move to that option," he said. "People want to know which technique is going to work, and I don't know."

And if "lower marine riser package" were to fail, he said, BP engineers would try placing a second blowout preventer on top of the first, which failed to cut of the oil flow after the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig. The failed blowout preventer is a 48-foot-tall, 450-ton apparatus that sits atop the well 5,000 feet underwater.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/29/us.gulf.oil.spill/index.html?hpt=T1&iref=BN1

[Kablooie]

1. Surprise Sargent Carter! Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!

[rocktivity]

2. The real problem is that they have no idea what will work at this depth

because they convinced Congress that there was no need to waste time and money on figuring out what would work beforehand.

:headbang:

[HughMoran]

3. Yes, we watched it live and already discussing