Posted on 05/16/2010 12:35:58 PM PDT by Ready4Freddy
HOUSTON - Reporting its first success in containing the massive Gulf oil leak nearly a month after it started, BP on Sunday said oil and natural gas were flowing via a mile-long pipe to a ship at the surface.
"So far it's working extremely well," BP Senior Executive Vice President Kent Wells said of the strategy of inserting a 4-inch tube into the 21-inch riser, a pipe in the seafloor from where the largest leak is spewing.
"We're very slowly increasing the rate" to get more oil and natural gas up, he told reporters. "We will just learn as we go with this approach." Siphoning oil from a mile down had never before been successful.
It's not clear how much of the overall leak is being captured, Wells said, but that should be known in the next day or two.
In any case, the tube is only an interim strategy until the well head can be capped. That requires drilling a second well to relieve pressure on the leaking well — a process that has started but which is expected to take at least two months.
Glitch a day earlier
On Saturday, the technique was attempted for the first time. Natural gas was siphoned out and then burned off when it got to the surface. Oil also entered the tube but a glitch stopped the strategy before any oil could make it all the way to the surface.
The glitch happened when engineers, via the robotic submarines, tried to connect two pieces of equipment a mile below the water's surface.
BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said one piece of equipment, called the framework, had to be brought to the water's surface so that adjustments could be made to where it fits with the long tube that connects...
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/16/AR2010051601510.html?hpid=topnews
I can say this with no negative connotations...BP SUCKS!!
Washington was willing to p*ss money away on cash for clunkers and wads for washing machines, but this? Nothing.
What’s up with Nappy and friends not wanting BP to use the spill trust to help pay for the cleanup? The US makes billion$ from the offshore royalties.
Good news for now but I’m afraid we are still going to lose may of the estuaries along the Gulf Coast.
And with all the oil in the Gulf, the BP people need to be tarred and feathered.
“Obama snoozes, while the Gulf oozes!”
Kinda curious, why is a british company doing the drilling in our gulf?
BP needs to pay the entire cost as they were in command of the operations and they made they made the errors leading to this disaster.
I think BP is probably better off for not having Obama give them money.
Because the Bent Impeached One let them buy Amoco and Arco which is the north slope Oil as well.
BP is one of if not the largest E&P companies in the world and should be able to drill in US waters.
However, if BP does not pay every dime to clean up this mess and reimburse all those along the Gulf Coast who have lost income as a result of this accident, BP should be prohibited from E&P activity in the United States.
What’s the fund for, then?
I would like to know that too. If they are not going to use the fund for this spill, is it just a slush fund for Bam and his butt boys?
BP is liable, make them pay.
OPA was designed to provide resources to fund the costs of clean-up that were beyond what federal law required. However, in this case, it appears that BP made an egregious error in the operation and should be responsible for all of the costs.
If not, BP can take their operations elsewhere.
Most importantly, please keep in mind that: 1. This is the first such disaster in about 40 years (Santa Barbara channel- unsure of the exact date); 2. The ocean floor seeps oil of greater quantities not under dramatic pressure, all the time. 3. Offshore drilling at such depths is dangerous in part because the nation saw fit to stop all offshore drilling on the inner coast line (continental shelf) which is likely much easier and safer.
I would not limit that sentiment to just BP. Apparently NONE of the oil companies had a contingency for this situation. What surprises me is that an Exxon-Mobil or a Shell didn't offer BP a solution they had on the shelf for just such a situation. That tells me none of them were prepared for this and it's possible this could have happened to any of them. I say possible because we still don't know the full details of what happened and whether an Exxon-Mobil or a Shell would have gotten themselves in such a predicament.
Is that how the law reads, or is that your personal perspective?
No doubt used, like social security, to reduce the reported deficit. By every admin since its inception.
While you may wish for the Nanny State Government to clean up BP’s mess, I hold BP responsible.
As for the legal matters, those can be adjudicated at the Federal Courthouse in New Orleans.
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