No Oil Leaking During Test of BP's New Cap

[sparky]

the cause was more MMS than BP

 

[AVG-JOE]

This is all no-thanks to the Obama Administration that did nothing to regulate the original drilling of the well & waived BP Emergency response plan & Environmental Impact studies prior to the blow-out. Now decided to regulate everything involved in stopping the oil flow and cleaning up the spill causing major delays in stopping the flow of oil from the well. Obama deserves credit for turning this problem into a worse disaster.

This is all thanks to the lawyers, both government and corporate, that insisted on figuring out who was to blame while oil poured into the sea.

George Bush Sr had the same blown opportunity with the spill in AK to act first and sort out responsibility later and he cowed to his corporate puppet masters and their attorneys, who worried more about pinning the responsibility on someone else than addressing the spill.

Obama learned NOTHING from the history of that disaster. His response, as our leader, was as weak as G H W Bush's.

 

[AVG-JOE]

Best wishes to the families that earn their living off the Gulf. It will be a while before your lives are back to normal, but this is a good start

You get it. It is great the leak has stopped but it has been almost three months. They are saying that the spill is five times that of the Exxon Valdez. Some projections have the oil even spreading up the eastern seaboard. So many good hardworking people have had their lives destroyed. We could be talking decades before things get back to normal. I know I'm playing Monday morning QB but why couldn't they have done this earlier?

This is the question we have to ask as voters - Why didn't We, The People respond to this a little quicker? I would have been very happy to see the government put up the cash to buy the equipment and hire the people necessary to get started on the clean up and work with military expedition on capping the well starting day one - before the congressional hearings on who's at fault and liable.

The unemployment rate in south LA, MS and AL should be zero or less, with every able bodied man and woman on the payroll soaking up oil with cotton balls if that's all they can find. This pussy-footing around while the lawyers figure out whose check-book will be ultimately tapped during man-made disasters MUST end with this one.

 

[editec]

Best wishes to the families that earn their living off the Gulf. It will be a while before your lives are back to normal, but this is a good start

You get it. It is great the leak has stopped but it has been almost three months. They are saying that the spill is five times that of the Exxon Valdez. Some projections have the oil even spreading up the eastern seaboard. So many good hardworking people have had their lives destroyed. We could be talking decades before things get back to normal. I know I'm playing Monday morning QB but why couldn't they have done this earlier?

This is the question we have to ask as voters - Why didn't We, The People respond to this a little quicker? I would have been very happy to see the government put up the cash to buy the equipment and hire the people necessary to get started on the clean up and work with military expedition on capping the well starting day one - before the congressional hearings on who's at fault and liable.

The unemployment rate in south LA, MS and AL should be zero or less, with every able bodied man and woman on the payroll soaking up oil with cotton balls if that's all they can find. This pussy-footing around while the lawyers figure out whose check-book will be ultimately tapped during man-made disasters MUST end with this one.

The government was on the scene from day one.

Suggesting otherwise is silly.

 

[Mr. H.]

The drilling industry has some splaining to do

Yeah the can SPLAIN why they drilled 35,000 wells in the gulf, including 700 Very deep water wells, and 1 of them leaked.

And they can splain how they can keep it from ever happening again

We can't afford "just one leak"

Kind of like Three Mile Island. No new power plants in the last 20+ years.

 

[Immanuel]

You get it. It is great the leak has stopped but it has been almost three months. They are saying that the spill is five times that of the Exxon Valdez. Some projections have the oil even spreading up the eastern seaboard. So many good hardworking people have had their lives destroyed. We could be talking decades before things get back to normal. I know I'm playing Monday morning QB but why couldn't they have done this earlier?

This is the question we have to ask as voters - Why didn't We, The People respond to this a little quicker? I would have been very happy to see the government put up the cash to buy the equipment and hire the people necessary to get started on the clean up and work with military expedition on capping the well starting day one - before the congressional hearings on who's at fault and liable.

The unemployment rate in south LA, MS and AL should be zero or less, with every able bodied man and woman on the payroll soaking up oil with cotton balls if that's all they can find. This pussy-footing around while the lawyers figure out whose check-book will be ultimately tapped during man-made disasters MUST end with this one.

The government was on the scene from day one.

Suggesting otherwise is silly.

As much as I think politicians corrupt, I have to agree with this.

To my knowledge everyone of them have done what they could do to solve this problem as quickly as they could. I don't think anyone had any ideas on how to stop this early on. It was trial and error. They weren't (and still are not) sure this is going to work. They know it won't work long term. They have plans to fill the well from the relief well. Let's just pray that they can keep the pressure stable until they can seal the well permanently.

Immie

 

[AVG-JOE]

You get it. It is great the leak has stopped but it has been almost three months. They are saying that the spill is five times that of the Exxon Valdez. Some projections have the oil even spreading up the eastern seaboard. So many good hardworking people have had their lives destroyed. We could be talking decades before things get back to normal. I know I'm playing Monday morning QB but why couldn't they have done this earlier?

This is the question we have to ask as voters - Why didn't We, The People respond to this a little quicker? I would have been very happy to see the government put up the cash to buy the equipment and hire the people necessary to get started on the clean up and work with military expedition on capping the well starting day one - before the congressional hearings on who's at fault and liable.

The unemployment rate in south LA, MS and AL should be zero or less, with every able bodied man and woman on the payroll soaking up oil with cotton balls if that's all they can find. This pussy-footing around while the lawyers figure out whose check-book will be ultimately tapped during man-made disasters MUST end with this one.

The government was on the scene from day one.

Suggesting otherwise is silly.

Yeah, they were 'on the scene' but what were they doing besides wringing their hands in fear and wondering how this was going to affect the next election?

 

[Valerie]

For now, the flow of oil out of the Macondo well remains temporarily halted as the well continues to undergo the test, which could last until Saturday.


"Pressure continues to rise," BP Vice President Kent Wells said during a teleconference. "The current monitoring shows no negative evidence, if you remember the big concern was whether we could have a breach to surface."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704913304575371131773344468.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

So far so good!





>>

A test that will measure the pressure inside the well has begun and will last from six hours to 48 hours, BP said in an e- mailed statement today. The test will determine if BP can leave the seal in place or if it will need to let the leak resume until it can be permanently capped with a relief well.

The spill, the biggest U.S. oil spill in history, occurred after an April 20 explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig. The well has been spewing 35,000 to 60,000 barrels of oil a day, according to a U.S. government-led panel of scientists.

“The sealing-cap system never before has been deployed at these depths or under these conditions, and its efficiency and ability to contain the oil and gas cannot be assured,” the London-based company said.

Interim Step

The pressure test was delayed after the government raised concerns it might cause the well to burst open beneath the seabed. After getting necessary approvals, BP halted the test yesterday because a leak developed when it began shutting off the flow to allow pressure to build up.

Shutting in the well using a new cap is an interim step before BP can permanently plug the well with cement, National Incident Commander Thad Allen said in a New Orleans press conference.

“The number one goal is to shut in the well and kill it and stop it at the source,” Allen said today. “This is merely an intermediate step to plugging the hole.”

Engineers today replaced a faulty valve assembly that caused the leak yesterday. BP collected 12,840 barrels of oil yesterday from the well, according to a posting on its website. The company has halted oil collection and drilling of two relief wells that will plug the leak while the pressure test is ongoing.

Pressure Test

Low pressure during the first six hours will indicate the well is leaking somewhere else, which would cause BP to stop the test and resume recovering as much oil as possible through lines from the well to vessels on the surface of the Gulf, Allen said.

High pressure readings, between 8,000 and 9,000 pounds per square inch, will show the oil is trapped in the wellbore drilled by the Deepwater Horizon. If the well withstands high pressure for two days, BP will reopen the valves, let the pressure drop, and run a seismic survey to check for any leaks before shutting the valves for good, Allen said.

Being able to shut in the oil would help in the event a hurricane entered the area before BP permanently plugs the well, Allen said.

The first of two relief wells being drilled to plug the well is about 100 feet (30 meters) from intercepting the leak, Allen said.

BP had been sending captured oil from the well to the Helix Producer I and Q4000 rig, which are capable of handling as much as 33,000 barrels a day.

BP Halts Gulf of Mexico Leak, Starts Pressure Test - BusinessWeek

>>

 

[DiamondDave]

The drilling industry has some splaining to do

Yeah the can SPLAIN why they drilled 35,000 wells in the gulf, including 700 Very deep water wells, and 1 of them leaked.

And they can splain how they can keep it from ever happening again

We can't afford "just one leak"

Guarantee in 1 hand and shit in the other and see which one fills up first...

You cannot guarantee zero accidents... this is, by nature, a VERY risky business... and there will indeed be accidents in ways we have not even thought of yet... it is risk mitigation... the rewards usually do outweigh the risks, even with disastrous outcomes... But we do still hold accountability for mistakes with a legitimate negligent nature... though unlike what the enviro-nazis want to hear, not all accidents are due to negligence and some things you really can't blame on anything but the concept of 'shit happens'