Posted on 07/12/2010 11:17:14 PM PDT by Cardhu
BP has successfully placed a new cap over the leaking Gulf of Mexico oil well.
The success was revealed on murky live pictures from an underwater camera and broadcast on BP's website.
They show the "Top Hat 10" device hovering and then lowering completely over the well that had been gushing a mile (1,600 meters) beneath the surface.
The valve has been designed to be a much tighter fit than its predecessor, so as to completely contain the oil.
Once it is screwed into place, BP plans to perform an "integrity test" lasting between six and 48 hours. The US government and BP are due to decide by Thursday whether the valve can stay in place to seal the well shut.
The company's share price, which has taken a battering since the disaster happened three months ago, rose around 5% yesterday as hopes for a solution increased. The oil company has used 46,000 staff and 6,400 ships so far in the clean-up effort.
The operation began after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank on April 20 and crude oil began spewing into the ocean.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.sky.com ...
If he does it will fail.
Hey, get with the program - that was Obama who plugged that leak. Get it straight! /sarc
He’ll have to go on vacation again for all his hard work /s.
They are testing the pressure at the head. The higher it goes the better meaning the bore is intact. If it does not egualize to what it was before the blowout it means leaks down below..bad news. But they can easily tap the head and take all that is coming out. They do want to slowly close the valve though. This is really good work by the engineers on the job.
The public’s memory is short and their knowledge base is limited. Crude oil is natural. Nature will dispose of it as it has for billions of years. Bacteria love it. It will soon be gone.
“... while his daughter was shaving...”
Hmmmmmmmmm?
After a couple hurricanes this fall, I predict fishing will be back to normal next spring.
Now the Obama Administration will have to find another corporate demon it can castigate.
Now they will harvest most of the oil in that field, make a profit and in a year the ocean will have cleaned up whatever mess there is so you’d never know it happened. Except of course for the 9000 sq mile dead zone at the mouth of the Mississippi caused by runoff from chemicals in the Midwest that are used by Agro-business. You know, the Ethanol boys. But we’ll just ignore that.
It was never down that much. It dropped from the low 60's to about 27; it's at about 37 now on optimism over the new cap limiting further damage.
And it's still gushing, according to 'live feed from Skandi ROV2.'
http://www.bp.com/sectionbodycopy.do?categoryId=9034366&contentId=7063636
The well is not "capped" yet. The current "cap" has a big hole in the top, but the MSM hasn't noticed that so far. Daddy hasn't plugged the hole yet.
Great news!
Yes, it is; and Obama will now be challenged to speak, like he believes it is too.
We can call this, the Obama Promise.
Well...I'm certainly glad that the government "experts" are there to tell us whether the valve can stay in place to seal the well shut.
I'd rather they just stay the hell out of EVERY business and STFU!
It’s his legacy.
While all of the individual pieces have been used for many years, there simply wasn't the necessary combination or manufactured pieces in existence.
There were several new tools and pieces manufactured from scratch to get the job done. The new capping ‘spool’ installed on top of the old BOP is a prime example because for a certainty, the bottom flange design has been used for many years universally and even the top quick connect fitting pair design on the spool and the three ram cap has been used at other times, there simply wasn't any assembly incorporating the bottom flange, extension pipe and the top quick connect fitting existent until after BP made one for this well.
Even the ‘new’ Three Ram Cap’ was made from several parts which were previously made for other BOPs but were incorporated into the new cap instead.
Early on, people were wondering how to firmly attach to the broken riser and ti turned out that the best solution was to simply unbolt the old damaged flange with the broken riser and replace it with a new undamaged flange/riser (SPOOL).
Using the previous design would still have involved long disconnect and reconnect times in case the collection vessels had to move ‘off site’ while the new improved quick disconnect riser cut down the 4 to 5 day disconnect or reconnect procedure to a single day.
There was also the creation of TWO newly designed tools just to pull the old damaged flange/riser from the top of the BOP. Those were two entirely new tools never before in existence.
Basically, while the individual parts for the spool and cap have been around and used in other ways, this is an entirely new application for this specific problem which can now be used elsewhere.
Even the assembly of the previously available distinct pieces into new assemblies took a lot of time which also includes testing to insure that it would all work and raining for the ROV operators to learn hot to implement it 5000 feet below the surface.
In regards to the OLD BOP itself, it seems to be pretty much undamaged and reliable. There was a ‘FLEX’ pipe connecting from the BOP to the flange at the top which was slightly bent, but that has been straightened out and reinforced. The BOP itself wasn't damaged or even leaning, it was simply the flex pipe which tilted from the weight of the riser which bent over.
Actually, if everyone would simply visit the BP site and watch all the videos and animations they would have a much better understanding of why it took so long to analyize and then decide the correct process to implement.
For a certainty, Obama and company's did negative increase the time needed to implement the ‘fix’ and they are also responsible for the delays in collecting the spilled oil which still exists today and for that they are most truly GUILTY.
BP is guilty of causing the leak, but they are also deserving credit for coming up with the fixes. Obama deserves no credit, only blame and has done nothing to solve the problem, remaining instead a hindrance while BP has at least earned credit for doing what was and is necessary to actually solve the problem. DISCLAIMERS: 1, I apologize for any typos, spell check doesn't catch everything. 2, This post is in response to a few other posts and is not aimed at any one individual but only for everyones enlightenment. It was more effecient to simply state some things only once and not repeat parts over multiple posts to various others. 3, There is no intent to critize anyone, only share what I have learned over the past few days.
What success? Still looks like it`s gushing to me.
10-4. We are on the same page except you like typing more than I do. :)
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