BP began the ‘top kill’ it hopes will plug the leaking oil well in the Gulf of Mexico yesterday. As of this morning it says “There are no significant events to report at this time.”
The live video coming from the robots working on the leak at the bottom of the sea certainly shows a change. As the Washington Post notes, “While cameras show clouds of liquid continuing to surge upward, BP said it appeared to be nontoxic drilling liquid, known as mud, not oil.”
Mind you, BP has already warned that “Throughout the extended top kill procedure – which may take up to two days to complete – very significant changes in the appearance of the flows at the seabed may be expected. These will not provide a reliable indicator of the overall progress, or success or failure, of the top kill operation as a whole.”
Executives at the oil company must be praying the top kill – or the back up ‘junk shot’ – do make a big impact on the oil leaks. Some good news would be desperately welcome for what looks like an increasingly embattled business.
A new WSJ investigation – branded by the paper “the most complete account so far of the fateful decisions that preceded the blast” on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig – does not reflect well on the company:
BP made choices over the course of the project that rendered this well more vulnerable to the blowout, which unleashed a spew of crude oil that engineers are struggling to stanch.
BP, for instance, cut short a procedure involving drilling fluid that is designed to detect gas in the well and remove it before it becomes a problem, according to documents belonging to BP and to the drilling rig’s owner and operator, Transocean Ltd. BP also skipped a quality test of the cement around the pipe—another buffer against gas—despite what BP now says were signs of problems with the cement job and despite a warning from cement contractor Halliburton Co.
The New York Times is also on the case, reporting:
Several days before the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, BP officials chose, partly for financial reasons, to use a type of casing for the well that the company knew was the riskier of two options, according to a BP document.
In other news, all 125 commercial fishing vessels which were roped into oil clean up operations have been recalled from the Breton Sound after crew on three separate ships reported nausea, dizziness, headaches and chest pains. One of these was airlifted to hospital.
“No other personnel are reporting symptoms, but we are taking this action as an extreme safeguard,” says Robinson Cox, the assistant safety officer at Incident Command Post Houma.
UPDATE: And should BP really be making jokes on their twitter feed?
Terry is a fictional character on the spoof BPGlobalPR twitter feed, so the official site may have been hacked. More woe for BP?
UPDATE 2: BP spokesman Mark Salt tells Business Insider the feed was indeed hacked.
UPDATE 3: The director of the heavily criticised Minerals Management Service has apparently resigned. Elizabeth Birnbaum became director of the MMS in July last year. “She resigned today on her own terms and on her own volition,” US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told a congressional committee. “I thank her for her service and wish her the very best.” (Newsweek.)