From the NY Times moments ago:
HOUSTON — BP had to halt its ambitious effort to plug its stricken oil well in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday afternoon when engineers saw that too much of the drilling fluid they were injecting into the well was escaping along with the leaking crude oil.
A technician at the BP command center said that pumping of the fluid had to be stopped temporarily while engineers were revising their plans, and that the company hoped to resume pumping by midnight, if federal officials approved.
But the news is not all bad.
"We’re still quite optimistic," he said, but cautioned: "It is not assured and its not a done deal yet. All of this will require some time."
Massive kudos to the old grey lady for not using the words "spill" and "leak" too early or often in this story. They have "flow of oil" and "gushing" in there, but those wrongly-attributed terms are not prominently featured.
For those who missed it last week...
This is a leak -
This is a spill -
A volcano of oil a mile under the ocean is nothing like either of these, and should not be referred to as such.
Thanks.
Today's BP Top Kill Mothership:
BP Top Kill Day Two - Mothership
by khowell
(Please rec the above diary)
List of yesterday's liveblog diaries:
Top Kill has begun! - Tomtech
Top Kill LiveBlog - Diary 1 - khowell
Top Kill LiveBlog - Diary 2 - conchita
Top Kill LiveBlog - Diary 3 - sc kitty
Some links:
Administration response to spill Oilpocalypse.
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Update by LaughingPlanet on Thu May 27, 2010 at 03:17:11 PM PDT:
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The press conf. has ended, and I am still unclear about what we learned. (I spent too much attention trying to get the embed to work!) Jed's front page post suggests that things are "proceeding", but if they have no mud, then I don't see what that means.
We are in the hands of BP's technicians for the time being. Not a pleasant thought.
OK, primeq; the fat cats running the company is the unpleasant part. Sorry I didn't correct this sooner.