(Crossposted at FailDrill.com)
Despite the glowing headlines proclaiming "Gulf Oil Stops Flowing", we're not out of the woods yet.
In a conference call this afternoon, retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen announced that pressure levels have NOT risen high enough in the recently-capped well.
This could mean one of two things:
- The oil field pressure itself has been depleted by three straight months of gushing into the Gulf
- There's a leak in the well below the sea floor, which is allowing oil to continue to spew out into the environment.
There are a number of reasons for fearing the latter, including the fact that shoddy work on the well in the first place was probably what allowed methane to leak out and rise to the surface, exploding and sinking the drilling platform.
Allen said the test would continue for at least the next six hours (although it was originally slated to run 48 hours). BP and the government will continue to monitor the well closely.
From the AP story:
Pressure readings after 24 hours were about 6,700 pounds per square inch and rising slowly, Allen said, below the 7,500 psi that would clearly show the well was not leaking. He said pressure continued to rise between 2 and 10 psi per hour.
He said a seismic probe of the surrounding sea floor found no sign of a leak in the ground, one of the major concerns because oil erupting into the surroundings would be harder to contain and could weaken the well before it is plugged for good.
If the well doesn't hold, they'll return to pumping oil to surface ships - as much as 80,000 gallons a day - until the relief wells are finished sometime in late August. At that time BP should be able to kill the deep enough in the ground to avoid the problem of leaks.