100 FRAKING DAYS.
Christian Science Monitor | From ‘static kill’ to ‘bottom kill“: next steps in Gulf oil spill – best explanation of the Static Kill followed by Bottom Kill methodology I’ve seen yet.
[Bottom kill] will come after static kill, which has a tentative start date of next Monday. Static kill would deposit the same mixture of materials into the top of the well. Unlike top kill in late May, which employed the same tactic, static kill is considered a more realistic solution to preventing oil flow because the container cap, installed in mid-July, is providing a tighter seal around the wellhead and therefore won’t allow oil and gas to escape.
And why things have seemingly slowed down over the last couple of weeks. Copious amounts of champagne after the last container cap worked Bonnie and all that casing.
Both operations are being prepared simultaneously. Monday the well lines are being reattached to the riser pipes that extend from the seafloor to near the surface, after they were temporarily abandoned this weekend due to the threat of tropical storm Bonnie. Both lines will be flushed to remove sediments.
Starting Wednesday and continuing through Sunday, the lines will each be fitted with a 2,000-foot internal casing pipe that will carry the materials downward. Once they are in place, the static kill operation will occur, likely Monday. The entire endeavor is set to prepare the launch of the relief well operation.
“The week after next we will have the potential ¦ to begin killing the well.”
Did anyone hear Jon Stewart saying last night that Tony Hayward started at BP as a geologist at the age of 22 and with a PhD? Ah, that famous one-year University of Edinburgh PhD. Ok, it turns out he was 25. Either way, it’s the first I heard he started out in the industry as a production geologist before “rising quickly through the ranks in a series of technical and commercial roles in BP Exploration” and “coming to Lord ‘Culture of Complacency’ Browne‘s attention.” The shame.
In other news, a plan to kill American geologist with poison beer. The terrorists know our weakness.
