[eddie willers]

Found this:

LMRP Option

Being progressed in parallel with plans for the top kill is development of a lower marine riser package (LMRP) cap containment option. This would first involve removing the damaged riser from the top of the BOP, leaving a cleanly-cut pipe at the top of the BOP’s LMRP. The LMRP cap, an engineered containment device with a sealing grommet, would be connected to a riser from the Discoverer Enterprise drillship and then placed over the LMRP with the intention of capturing most of the oil and gas flowing from the well and transporting it to the drillship on the surface. The LMRP cap is already on site and it is anticipated that this option will be available for deployment by the end of May.

[Bogey78O]

The thing that puzzles me... wouldn’t BP not want to cap it and go with the LMRP option?

If they close this well off they can forget about the government ever letting them re-drill it. And this is a huge oil field.

Part of me believes they want to stop this well at all costs but another is cynical enough to believe they’d just try and slow it down till they could control it.

[BlueDragon]

A series of fittings/valves of the sort,

an engineered containment device with a sealing grommet, would be connected to a riser from the Discoverer Enterprise drillship and then placed over the LMRP with the intention of capturing most of the oil and gas flowing from the well rather than a single, would allow..."

would allow the pressures to be lessened, step by step. The larger each fitting gets (in diameter) the easier it is to "valve" or simply, partially block or close off a portion of the flow, with each successive step.

Keep going up in diameter, while continuing to block off or reduce a small portion of the volume of flow at each step, and eventually one can reduce the pressures to much more manageable pressures.

It's called a "christmas tree", (though upside down) and such approach to controlling high pressures at well heads, has long been in existence.