Well, back to the drawing board.
Officials for BP on Saturday encountered a significant setback in their efforts to attach a containment dome over a leaking well on the seabed of the Gulf of Mexico, forcing them to move the dome aside while they find another method to cap the crude oil flowing into the Gulf since April 20.
Officials discovered that gas hydrates, ice-like crystals lighter than water, had built up inside the 100-ton metal container. The hydrates threatened to make the dome buoyant, and they also plugged up the top of the dome, preventing it from being effective.
“I wouldn’t say it has failed yet,” Doug Suttles, BP’s chief operating officer, said at a news conference in Robert, La. “What we attempted to do last night hasn’t worked.”(emphasis mine)
As a consequence, crews had to lift the dome off the well and place it on the seabed.
BP officials said they had anticipated a problem with hydration — but not this soon in the operation. Since last week they had been cautioning that this type of procedure had never before been attempted at 5,000 feet below the surface.
The news on Saturday came as BP has struggled to find any method to stem the majority of the oil, leaking at least 5,000 barrels — roughly 210,000 gallons — per day.
For now, they have put the dome 650 feet to the side of the leaking well, “while we evaluate options,” Mr. Suttles said.
Please remember - the real cause of this was the quest for profit... or, to put it bluntly, unadulterated greed.
Let's hope they can figure out a way to check this ongoing disaster, the eventual results are too enormous to even begin to comprehend.
I wonder if we'll learn anything this time around?
2 comments:
It is my opinion, based on nothing but surmise and mistrust of BP's motives, that there's a likelihood that BP could stop the leak by capping the well, maybe by filling the pipe full of drilling mud and/or concrete, but that for them that's a complete last resort, because to do so would cut off access to the oil forever. Building a dome to siphon off the oil, or their other plan, to run a new pipe down to siphon off the oil to waiting tankers, would keep the oil flowing.
BP CEO Tony Hayward would not commit to paying for economic damages beyond the company's $75 million liability limit.
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