BP Gulf Oil Leak Well-Head Repair … an anthology part VII

FINALLY!!!! The valves on the newly installed capping stack on the Macondo well have been closed as of 14:25 July 15, 2010 and the integrity test has begun. Just a mere 86 days after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig first exploded.

All the credit for this achievement must be given to the engineers, technicians and crews of the ships and rigs from the many companies involved who conceived, developed and executed an excellent plan, the results of which we witnessed yesterday. Unlike the many agencies of the US Government, the companies that actually accomplished something were not deterred, nor did they make sure their every step was the most politically expedient thing to do from every possible angle. I am not giving any kind of a pass to BP; the company failed time after time before and continuing throughout this entire episode and deserve much the scorn they have received.

I had intended on writing out the time-line on all the stumbles and screw-ups caused by Obama, Napolitano, Salazar, Chu and the rest of the incompetents who have so openly exhibited their lack of leadership qualities. But I thought I begin with the video below, which does a very good job of summarizing Obama’s lack of understanding as to how to fix a crisis, rather than try to use it to further his socialist agenda.

Jake Tapper reports that in  a Rose Garden briefing this morning, Obama “said he wanted to speak to the public this morning because media reports were overplaying the significance of the cap being fitted over the well.”

“There were a lot of reports coming out in the media that seemed to indicate, ‘Well, maybe this thing is done,’” he said. “We won’t be done until we actually know that we’ve killed the well and that we have a permanent solution in place,” he said.

The president said that “it’s important that we don’t get ahead of ourselves here. You know, one of the problems with having this camera down there is that when the oil stops gushing, everybody feels like we’re done. And we’re not.”

Taking an optimistic but cautious tone, the president said that the cap will be used to either stop the flow entirely or partially until construction on the relief wells is finished. “We’re not going to know for certain which approach makes sense until additional data is in,” he said.

Obama is doing nothing more than to try and defuse any good news that he wasn’t personally responsible for. Heaven forbid someone else get credit for something! BP has said over and over that the capping stack is to be an interim measure to stem the oil flow, not the solution. They will continue drilling relief well number 1 and tie into Macondo. They well then “kill” the Macondo well by pumping heavy drilling mud down the relief well, which will be drawn up into Macondo and choke it foo permanently.

Our government has failed over and over and over in their response to this disaster. The claim that they have “managed” anything in regards to BP’s screw up is laughable. This administration is incapable of managing their way out of a wet paper sack.

Remember November!

BP Gulf Oil Leak Well-Head Repair … an anthology part VI

BP just released a video explaining some of the steps they were going to be going through to install the capping stack.

That was a lot easier than what I went trough tiring to write an explanation in almost real-time;-)

I’ll continue with my rant tomorrow.

BP Gulf Oil Leak Well-Head Repair … an anthology part V – UPDATED

Updated info at the end of the post

It was my expectation that today I’d be reporting on the progress of the stack test and then be moving on to expand on the rant I began at the end of my last post. Alas … not gunna’ happen. AP released a story this morning indicating that the government was treading “cautiously:”

An administration official, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the talks with BP, said the government was acting out of “abundance of caution” and didn’t want potentially dangerous pressure tests on a tighter containment cap that has been placed over the well to go ahead until BP answers questions about possible risks.

This has been the government’s problem since they finally realized the Deepwater Horizon explosion and sinking was in fact a big deal. No one in the Administration knows what they’re doing, so rather than trust the experts, “let’s just stop everything, sit down and contemplate our navels until the right answer jumps into our laps!”

Meanwhile:

Oil continues to flow out the top of the 3 Ram Stack

UPDATE 20100714 13:35 PDT: BP has now postponed their regularly scheduled afternoon technical conference call … twice . No new time has been provided … yet!

UPDATE II 20100714 15:45 PDT: This afternoon’s delayed briefing just concluded. While there was a lot of “we’re working closely with go’mnt  scientist” and other such blather, Kent Wells walked through the process BP was getting ready to undertake to conduct the well integrity test. As he was speaking, BP began shutting off the top valve, which diverted oil flow from the discharge out the top of the stack as in the image above. Oil began flowing from ports on two sides of the capping stack as seen in the image below:

Top valve on Capping Stack is closed, diverting oil flow to side ports

Work will continue for the next couple of hours to close the remaining valves. BP will be intently watching the pressure in the well casing, which hopefully will rise to between 8,000 and 9,000 PSI and hold steady. As I wrote in yesterday’s post, should the pressure begin to drop, that will indicate the integrity of the well is compromised and they will not be able to close in the well. At that point they will connect the top discharge connection to the collection system and begin recovering the oil and gas with the recovery vessels on the surface.

Pray the capping stack works!