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 ...
Another way for OBOZO HUSSEIN and Nappy to screw the Hated Ruler of OBOZO’S Birth Country, KENYA! Whenever OBOZO can further destroy America’s Greatest Ally, Great BRITAIN, he never misses the chance! BP is the perfect target!
Perfect! My garage is stocked with Duct Tape ! Duct Tape fixes everything! The Foam Problem on the Shuttle could have been fixed easily with Duct tape! So this Spill would be No Probleme for GOD’s Gift to Mankind! DUCT TAPE!!!
The first prime use for it would to tape OBOZO’S Mouth shut so he stops slandering and apologizing for OUR WONDERFUL CHRISTIAN AMERICA!!!
Yeah, seriously - what do any of these people foaming at the mouth about BP think that China would do if one of their oil rigs blew up and sank in the Gulf of Mexico? "Oh well, tough luck," as they sailed away with an underwater gusher still spewing.
Good work,BP outdid the Federal Government in everyway.
Why would anyone give any credence to sensation mongering 60 Minutes? The program is a disgrace to journalism and has been for years.
Does this mean I have to postpone my end-of-the-world party?
Qbama did for the flood in Tenn. just like he did for the flooded out areas in, wasn’t it the Dakotas last year?
I drink your milkshake...I drink it up.....
IIRC, the deepwater Gulf has been divvied up as far as mineral rights go, so it isn’t really ‘first-come, first served’. The Chinese had been rumored to have cut a deal with the Cubans, as had the Russians, but I’m not sure how far that will go. Neither has the most stellar environmental record, certainly not as good as BP and others, even with this incident in mind.
Why would anyone give any credence to sensation mongering 60 Minutes? The program is a disgrace to journalism and has been for years.
They had a first hand account of what happened. IMHO, Transocean has some explaining to do, as they damaged the BOP and keppt going. And BP has some explaining to do, as they took a catastrophic short cut in the capping of the well. Now, the explaining is for the loss of life. It looks like the ocean is doing a marvelous job consuming the oil, and the environmental i$pact is overstated,
People like you are the reason we aren't drilling for oil in more areas. We are not going to lose anything because of this oil. So far none(or very little) has reached the coast and none of the doomsday crap that has been predicted for this oil leakage has come about nor will it. The Ocean is taking care of the oil. most of the stuff coming up from the leaks is evaporating the rest is heavy asphalt and is sinking to the bottom. Take your hate of oil comapanies over to DU, I am sure they will agree with you. BTW, Bozo the WH clown oked this drilling and OKed the procedures that were used to drill this well. If you want to tar and feather someone start with the frickin' idiot in the WH>
Halliburtion was responsible for cementing the well and Cameron International supplied the blowout preventer. I think those two might be more responsible than BP.
What trust fund? Just like Soc. Sec., it's all going to pay for some Golden Fleece project.
> But the Obamarama Admin will declare BP “Too Big to Fail” and direct the US taxpayer to pay the cost of the cleanup. Obamarama will do this to keep his BP money train going.
Wow, if he does that I will buy you a beer, pal. No way is he this stupid (he’s evil, not stupid). BP is clearly in the wrong if you’re GOP or Dimocrat, Zer0’s got lots of sources for money other than BP, and demonizing BP will give him leverage on his cap and tax agenda.
If you ask me, the GOP is dropping the ball bigtime. They defeated lifting the cap on paying damages (can you imagine the political ads the Dims can run in November?), and you have idiot Jeff Sessions saying we don’t need to raise the cap because BP had given him it’s word that it would cover the costs of the spill in the Gulf. Stupid. I couldn’t believe my ears. Dumb.
What the hell, GOP. BP is responsible for its profits AND its f-ups. Make ‘em pay. It’s a no brainer.
bad news for crybabies hoping the world was coming to an end
SO, I wonder how well it is actually working?
I don’t trust BP execs to tell us the truth!
Did anyone see 60 Minutes last night?
http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/60minutes/main3415.shtml
They have another oil platform that needs to be shut down according to several BP employees.
Yes, because then the taxpayers would end up owning BP and its plummeting stock which will eventually have a $0 value.
I suspect they fail to execute a plan because the money is long gone, into the pockets of those in power.
It is time for a SERIOUS OVERHAUL of our government!
Why do you say that?
I think it cannot possibly help Obama to have this thing going on an on!
WHen the really bad stuff starts hitting those pristine FL beaches and Key West, I think it will be a PR nightmare for him (sort of like Katrina images were for GW).
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