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Subscribe to RSSBP says its tests show it's on schedule for mid-August completion of a relief well in the Gulf, which is considered the best hope of stopping the oil that's been gushing since April.
The crew drilling the first of two wells ran a procedure this week to confirm it is on the correct path, spokesman Bill Salvin said, according to The Associated Press:
"The layman's translation is, 'We are where we thought we were,'" he said.
Several such tests are needed to determine the relief well's location relative to the well that blew out April 20 when the offshore drilling rig Deepwater Horizon exploded. Once the new well intersects the blown-out one, BP plans to pump heavy drilling mud in to stop the oil flow and plug it with cement.
Salvin said the relief well should be done by mid-August, but that didn't seem to help the company's stock price, which plunged following the company's announcement that the price tag for the response has risen to $2.35 billion.
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Please STOP USING DISPERSANT--it's killing the marine life--animals cannot breath dispersed oil but they don't know to avoid it. At least tar balls are visible. STOP DISPERSANT.
Considering the lies we've already heard from BP spokespeople, I can't help wondering which year they are referring to for the August completion date for the relief wells.
I wanted to segway my comment to this article, however, I can only believe BP's August completion date is another 'shot in the dark!' An article that caught my eye is one that appeared this morning in Peter Mauer's, Anchorage Daily News story, "BP helped state investigate itself."
The article describes what happened in 2005 when two State of Alaska agencies received complaints that a BP drilling contractor routinely cheated on tests of blowout preventers. It is alleged that BP knew it, and the agencies allowed the very companies accused of the wrongdoing, to participate in the investigation. The link to this story may be found at: www.adn.com
The best hope for ever stopping the oil rests in the fact that tests on blowout preventers occur more than routinely, costs be damned to Big Oil (BP), and that criminal liability needs to be pursued!
I don't understand why BP is trying to use a loose cap to capture the flow when there is a flange 5 feet below it; break the flange, attach a shutoff valve and close the valve - end of leak. They say the underwater robots can exert tons of hydraulic force, how hard would it be to tool them for this task?