Ugh:
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.
The technician, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters, said the problem was not seen as serious. "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."
Let's hope the technician is right and this is just a question of tweaking their approach. Otherwise this thing could be flowing until August.
Update 2:36PM -- Here's a live feed of an update from Deepwater Horizon response, including government and BP officials.
Update 2:50PM -- In the press briefing (live feed above), BP's Doug Suttles said the 'Top Kill' is proceeding, but acknowledged that mud was not being pumped. Suttles said that BP had pumped mud in two phases, yesterday and last night, so no mud had been pumped for the last 16 hours. He claimed this was part of their plan. He said they are restocking another 15,000 barrels of drilling mud. Suttles said they may also hope to try a junk shot, and that it is hard to say to what degree the 'Top Kill' was working while the mud was being pumped.
Update 3:12PM -- Suttles also seemed to clearly contradict That Allen's claim that oil and gas flow had been stopped. He said that while mud was being pumped it reduced the flow, but did not stop it altogether.
