Latest BP cap attempt “on hold.”
BP has installed a new, better-fitting cap on the runaway Gulf oil well, equipping it with vents and outlet links that will enable either complete stoppage or “producing the oil”—attaching pipes to collection ships that can handle more than the well spills each day.
Retired Coast Guard admiral Thad Allen, commandant of the oil spill recovery, delivered an upbeat statement and even more optimistic answers to reporters’ and phone-callers’ questions on Wednesday morning. Allen characterized BP’s current efforts to cap the haemorrhaging oil well as “extremely promising,” and he revealed more than cautious optimism that BP engineers and technicians would contain the run-away well by Wednesday night or Thursday morning.
By Thursday morning, however, oil continued surging into the Gulf unabated, and BP spokespeople reported that further attempts to control the flow were “on hold” as scientists demanded further testing.
Preliminary tests suggested, ironically, the new cap may reduce pressure in the oil well to the point where full installation of the cap might create enough pressure in the “bore hole” to rupture the pipe under ground. Scientists demanded an “integrity” test and other seismic assessments before work on the cap might resume. As of Thursday afternoon, officials had no report on early data from the tests in progress, and they declined to speculate on the basis of the little they knew.
Despite the slow-down, even the most cautious analysts remained optimistic about the outcome of the current efforts. “Even if we cannot achieve a complete seal, we will be able to extract the oil coming from the well, so that we will stop its contamination of the Gulf,” one engineer told reporters. “We still believe that we are right on the brink of containing this thing.”
