You may not realize the proportions. The wellhead/BlowOffPreventer/assembly/manifold/contraption whatever you would like to call it is about 5 stories high with its associated plumbing surrounding it. The live shot is the actual well piping that connects to the top the wellhead and normally runs to the surface drilling rig or platforms.
The rig blew up (RIP) and all the piping free falls to the ocean bottom and stayed connected at the wellhead but laid over or crimped or buckled but still is attached with stress cracks or holes spewing oil/gas/mud through them at this bend in the damaged pipe. (video camera monitoring)
Normally the BOP is there to shut the flow of oil off but failed or partially failed. With all the stress it went through I’m amazed they can still work with it.
Complex fix to plug the leak yes but basic....from the BP website ‘how we try stop this’ write up:
“....With the manifold, we can also pump the ‘junk shot’ if necessary to stop too much of the kill mud going out through the top of the BOP rather than going down into the well to stop the flow. By switching valves in the subsea manifold, we can inject the ‘bridging material’ (the junk), which will prevent such losses and enable the top kill to continue.
We’ve been testing the junk shot on-shore, looking at different configurations of what might restrict the flow out of the Deepwater Horizon riser and what types of materials would help shut it off. Materials in a junk shot can include well-known items such as pieces of tires, golf balls, and pieces of rope.
Most of the equipment is on site and preparations continue for this operation.”
UNLESS, the main gusher isn’t what you are seeing on the live feed.
Surface oil accounts for only 5% of the total oil that has gushed out so far, so if we ALREADY have seen/measured the surface oil in the gulf to be around 12,000 square miles, how many square miles do you think that the oil would cover if all of it were to surface?
Divide .05% into 12,000 and you get 2,400,000 square miles and the closest country that I can get to that 2.4 square miles is Russia at a bit over 2 mil square miles.