O.K. So now BP says it could put mud in & staunch the leak...??

[marylanddem]

This from the MSNBC website:


"Choking off the flow for good?
The first chance to choke off the flow for good should come in about a week. Engineers plan to shoot heavy mud into the crippled blowout preventer on top of the well, then permanently entomb the leak in concrete. If that doesn't work, crews also can shoot golf balls and knotted rope into the nooks and crannies of the device to plug it, Wells said.

The final choice to end the leak is a relief well, but it is more than two months from completion.

Top officials in President Barack Obama's administration cautioned that the tube "is not a solution."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37188621/ns/gulf_oil_spill/


None of this will make sense to me until BP is relieved of its control over the disaster it created...

[havocmom]

1. Isn't that what a contractor wanted to do BEFORE the leak?

BP needs to become a non-entity. Assets need to be confiscated and put into a trust.

[marylanddem]

2. Yes - this gets more appalling by the hour. n/t

[DevonRex]

4. It had already been put in. BP made the contractor pull it back out

before the last plug was set. The contractor didn't want to but BP ordered him to do it.

[havocmom]

7. aqh, yes. Thank you for jogging my memory

That should pretty well convict the manager of that platform AND the corporate brass that put time above safety.

[uponit7771]

11. Yeap, this is what I get out of the 60 mins...would like to here BPs side

[ladjf]

19. Yes. Just do it. nt

[Submariner]

3. If anything should be Nationalized it's the oil companies

A nation's life-blood, it's energy supply, does not belong in the greedy private hand's of corporate money-whores who don't give a flying f*ck about the environment or following regulations. The government runs the military and the space program, nows it's time to get rid of Exxon, BP, Koch, the whole freakin' lot of those nasty bastards.

All they do is piss and moan and create fuel supply shortages to jack up gas prices on our oil off our coasts. Oil companies suck.

[KansDem]

6. Agreed...

If you want to peddle pizzas, CDs, and running shoes, use capitalism.

But national security issues like energy, education, the environment, and health care need to be overseen by the public.

I don't know why anybody still believes that a small group of powerful individuals working in secret to enrich their investors has the best interests of the nation at heart...

[SammyWinstonJack]

8. ^5

:thumbsup: Oh and I won't hold my breath, thinking that will happen EVER!

[KharmaTrain]

5. Here's Your Shit Sandwich...

OK, you relieve BP...so who do you call? While the government may have the best and brightest working on the problem and can turn to possible foreign assistance, they aren't geared up for what appears to be a massive undertaking. We're talking 5,000 plus feet under the surface...way beyond any manned submarine can go. This has to be done with robotics and specialized sumbersibles that can handle the pressure and have the people who know how to operate them. Any change means more delays in plugging this hole and there's no assurance anyone else has either the skills or technology to expedite what's happening here. It's maddening.

[paparush]

12. Don't we have a multi-billion dollar NAVY who are pretty good at doing things..

you know, underwater?

[KharmaTrain]

13. At 5,000 Feet?

They shoot missiles and build real big ships just fine, but this isn't a little leak. We didn't send in the military to shut down the oil fires in Kuwaiit following the first Gulf Oil Company war, professionals were called in.

The navy will be needed for the long term clean-up...THAT they can do plenty, but dealing with the immediate problem of stopping the gusher is another story. This wellhead is 5,000 feet down...submarines would explode from the pressure at this depth and I don't know of them having the robitics and skills to do make an immediate difference.

I'd prefer to see them call in experts from other oil companies (I know it's repulsive, but we need the expertise now, I don't care where it comes from) and whatever underwater companies that can come up with the best plan to tackle this problem.

Cheers...

[damntexdem]

9. That's not all that should be stuck down BP's hole.

;-)

[obxhead]

10. BP's 1st priority is saving the oil, not the Gulf.

The conflict of interest is so obvious here. On day one they should have had all their equipment assets seized and put in the hands of the government for all containment/flow stopping procedures.

Just another example of why corporations and capitalism in general can NOT be trusted to regulate itself in any way. Unfortunately we will be stuck with this lesson for a very long time.

[Statistical]

14. The best way to save the oil is to keep it underground.

An oil field that sized will many (3, 4, 6, more) wells all tapping same source of oil. Unless you think BP wants to wait 80 years to get it all to the market.

So the best way to preserve this asset (half billion barrel oil field) is to stop the flow of oil. Thinking anything else is just tinfoil silly. The reality is nobody had ever stopped an oil gusher a mile under water before and nobody had ever drilled this deep (on land, shallow water, or deep water) thus the oil is under more pressure than any other spill. Those two facts combined means BP is basically trying to figure it out as they go along.

The larger question is how/why does govt approve leases in deep water when nobody had a quick solution to stop flow of oil. There are dozens of other wells in similar situation. Anyone one of them could have blown also and the result would be the same. Hell any one of them could blow tomorrow and the result would be the same.

[obxhead]

15. EVERY attempt to date has been cap and pump.

EVERY "solution" so far has been to bring the oil to the surface in a pipe, not stop the well. Still they will wait another 7 to 10 days to bury this thing in mud and concrete, presumably to try more cap and pump solutions.

Your argument doesn't hold true from my perspective.

[Statistical]

16. The oil they are bringing to the surface is worthless.

saltwater contaminated oil and the natural gas is being burned off into atmosphere.

Not the jackpot you think it is. The only purpose of bringing it to the surface is to avoid it ending up in the Gulf.
BP owns hundreds of spent wells. They will dump this oil seawater crap into spent wells to store it forever.

Still even if the oil had value they are bringing up what 1000 barrels a day? At $70 a barrel that is $7 million in oil and meanwhile they are spending 4x that on mitigating the spill.

I mean forget the environmental angle your scenario doesn't even make sense from a profit standpoint. Every day the well remains uncapped BP is losing a lot of money and token amount of salt contaminated oil (and natural gas burned off into atmosphere) isn't going to change that.

To date BP had spent nearly 5x the cost of drilling a new well. If they had their choice which do you think they would rather have

a) $500 million spent with no benefit to BP + leaking well + PR disaster + billions in long term cleanup + billions in potential lawsuits

OR

b) cap the well on day one. Spent the $500 million to drill 5 new wells. PR win. No lawsuits, no massive cleanup and 5 wells producing 150,000 barrels of clean sellable oil each day.

I mean really you think they WANT scenario a? Would you? Would anyone on the planet? Even someone who shoots dolphins in the head for fun would pick b.

[obxhead]

17. Why then is BP only looking at the mud/concrete idea after

a month of oil spewing into the Gulf then.

I understand your argument and guess I could clarify mine a bit.

BP is more concerned with maintaining this well head than stopping the spill. Just follow their solution path and you can only logically come to that conclusion, regardless of how much sense your arguments make. (which they do btw)

[Statistical]

18. The mud kill method likely has a poor chance of success.

My fear is that what ultimately kills the well for good is the relief wells. It am fairly confident they will work the bad is the time it takes to drill a new well. The first one was started 11 days ago so it is still 79 days to go. The second one will be started this week (in case geography doesn't permit first one to seal primary well). So if nothing else works we are lookin at 80-100 more days of oil flow. That is a ton more oil spilled.

Anything other than the relief wells is just a hail mary IMHO. I pray I am wrong and the mud kill works but I doubt it will be.

Ixtoc I spilled for nearly a year and ultimately the well was killed. 3 million barrels spilled and the well was never saved, the intent was never to try and save the well. It simply is very difficult to seal well once the BOP fails. In that instance Pemex simply drilled a new well about 20 miles away from the sealed well into the same oil pocket.

BP will punch a half dozen wells into this oil pocket otherwise it would take a century or more to drain it.

[rucky]

20. WTF is this, Sanford and Son?

BP engineering meeting: "well I found these golf balls in my closet, and there sure is alot of mud around. a couple rolls of duct tape and I think we're good to go."

can we fire BP yet?