[mojitojoe]

And everyone: you can stop taking about BP pumping cement into the hole to plug the well. I know it’s difficult for most to envision what’s going on down there. But this isn’t a simplification of the situation: you have a pipe sticking straight up the air and it’s flowing 10 gallons per minute out the top. You stick a tube down the pipe and start pumping cement. Question: how long for the cement to harden? Answer: never. The cement is going to mix with the water and flow out the end of the pipe. Honest...I didn’t dumb down this example. That’s exactly what would happen if the pumped cmt down the blow out if it were still flowing. No one has ever set a cement plug into a flowing well in the history of the oil business. But you can shove a packer down a producing csg string and stop or at least slow a flow considerably. But can’t shove a packer down this hole: can’t get it through the BOP. And if you could there’s drill pipe in the way.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6516

[HoustonCurmudgeon]

Gee thanks! I've only been in the oilfield since 1968, my dad in the mid 50’s and his father from before WWII. Who the hell EVER said they could set a plug before the well was killed?

[ScreamingFist]

Honest...I didn’t dumb down this example.

And every engineer/oilfield hand knows you can't pump cement on an active well. Unfortunately, every socialite from new york to la are now all oil field engineers......if we are to believe the ny times.