BP's Final "Top Kill" Procedure For Gulf Oil Spill

eldavojohn writes "So far every attempted fix has resulted in failure to contain the Gulf of Mexico oil spill with the exception of the riser insertion method that appears to be little more than a mile-long tube sucking up oil. After attempting many options to allow the continued collection of crude oil, BP is finally considering a 'top kill' option that will kill the well. A vessel at the surface will use 30,000 horsepower pumps to slam kill mud and clay into the well's bent riser, allowing them to cap the well off with two relief wells (which won't be ready for several months). If that fails, the vessel will move on to a 'junk shot' that involves spewing larger debris like shredded rubber and golf balls into the lines to gum up the flow and stop it. Government officials acknowledge that while this may provide a solution, it may also worsen the situation if the resulting pressure causes the lines to blow or fail at other points. While this is likely one of the worst environmental disasters to hit the gulf, BP's debacle has caused Shell to pre-build cofferdams into seven wells that it is currently drilling in the gulf. These would drop into place in the event of such a catastrophic failure of a riser under the well."

Comments

Re:Environmentalism

[el chief]

You apologist shill. There is no such thing as an accident. Someone fucked up. They bought some cheap parts. Or didn't follow procedure. This is the same as not maintaining your car, and calling it an accident when your brakes fail.

Re:How many blunders will the American gov't allow

[Dishevel]

I am an expert in the field of government agencies and their ability to fuck shit up. The EPA is shit. There is a better than 50% chance that when they say something about a situation that is fully understood they will be off by 180 degs. On something like this the chance that the EPA has this figured out correctly is 147.3 billion to 1.