BUT, there is the court.

Do we now believe something some one says because we like it? Who is William K. Reilly and why should we believe he isn’t just lying like the rest of the D.C. crowd?

Here we go again with more idiots making decisions on things they know nothing about.

While they have this moratorium on drilling they are allowing or mandating that BP drill two relief wells into the same formation this well is in. Both these wells even if they hit there target will be exposed to the same pressures that the this ell blew out with.

The pressures would let them overcome it with heavy drilling mud in the top kill, but they are guaranteeing that this will work with the relief wells.

It would serve this Country right if one of those wells blows out the same way, because it may be the only way to make the people see how ignorant our Government is, and maybe get mad enough to fire the people in it.

Firing people in the government is certainly needed, however 1) the relief wells may not work even if BP has given assurances, and 2) given the craptastic manner in which all current GoM deepwater well projects were approved and built out, the decision to suspend their operations at least until they can be vetted for realsies could scarcely be more rational. Time out on the ticking time bombs already.

OT but the oily cost-shifting mechanism needs to be aired:

That’s a result of a small but stunning provision buried deep in the arcane rules of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) that offers a small class of investors a tidy profit through a loophole in the tax code.

The ripoff starts with “Master Limited Partnerships,” or MLPs. Shares in MLPs can be traded on the stock exchange in the same way as the stocks of any mega-corporation. But unlike corporations, which pay income taxes on their profits, limited partnerships’ take is untaxed. Their profits are treated as the partners’ personal incomes.

The rule allows the owners of regulated energy pipelines to operate as MLPs, avoiding corporate income taxes. But, they can still charge their customers for a share of the taxes they don’t pay. Who are their customers? Utility companies and gas stations that get their gas and oil delivered by pipeline. And that, ultimately, means you and me — people pumping gas into their tanks and paying their utility bills. The end result is that through an obscure rule, we all end up paying some of the taxes of America’s investor class.

- from “How You Pay the Tax Bills of Oil and Gas Investors,” June 21, 2010

Top Kill failed. ***EDITED IN MODERATION*** Let it run its course until it peters out over the next several years, or decades? Keep trying to suck up and burn off the 20-30% they are? Please illuminate us ***EDITED IN MODERATION*** about “government”, once again.

***ModNote: Insults directed at commenters are prohibited***

Overzealous moderator way over-edited my comment @6. Lost a whole paragraph! Could have been dual updates.

Basically, what do you iremember54 suggest they do? Let it run its course until it peters out over the next several years, or decades? Keep trying to suck up and burn off the 20-30% they are collecting? Please illuminate us.

All I see you doing is complaining about the government requesting relief wells, which I recall BP already started one before the request. Sure, the relief wells are dangerous but hopefully they will not be using defective BOP’s and will use a better well lining plan, like the one they had in place for the Deepwater well before they changed it at the last minute to save a few million. Also, they can take all the precautions about the gas now, since it’s obviously there.

I used to be the Corporation President for a company that supplied all they needed to drill oil and gas wells. So You haven’t been following Me for to long or listening to what I’ve said.

They could have plugged that well in days after the event, but BP wanted to capture the oil, and the assholes in our Government were afraid they could make it worse. So have been basically telling them don’t try to plug the well.

That well bore is like a straw, and a split casing or a bad cement job is like a hole in that straw. Take a straw and find something like a pencil that will fit suggly, but slide into the straw. Poke a little hole about two inches down on the straw then blow in the other end as had as you can, while sliding the straw in the end before the hole. When the pencil is in nothing will come out the end, and as soon as the pencil is far enough in to be passed the hole nothing will come out it either.

They should have cut the blowout preventer off the well leaving an open pipe and then stuck a drill string in the open pipe. They must know how much casing there is and where the cement job is, so they send in an open pipe that lengh with a preferated joint allowing the oil to escape untill they are below the casing and cement job, then the next section is a solid pice of steel acting as a plug. The weight of the drill string from the surface will over come the pressure of the oil and gas coming out and basically plug the well, but they keep pushing and fill the darn hole with steel far enough down it can’t blow out. Then they incert slips in the drill string. A slip lets the pipe slide in, but if tried to be pushed out or pulled out, it bites into the casing and won’t let the pipe move. The well is pluged, but if they want to be sure and drill the relief well at least it wouldn’t have been spewing oil for months while they did that.

It a high tech little boy putting His finger in the hole in the dike.
Instead of searching out all kinds of scientists asking them for how to fix it, knowing they may be smart but have a hard time putting their shoes on in the morning, let alone knowing how to fix this thing.

Does this answer Your Question?

PS. On the spilled oil had they put booms out in concentric circles around the accident sight and kept the oil in one area it could have been sucked up saving million of barrels of oil, and keeping it from drifting all over the Gulf, and creating the disaster we are seeing. Had Thad Allen not allowed them to spray dispersants, and used super tankers to suck up the oil, it would have saved all the misery and disaster and animal deaths that are happening.

Isn’t the problem 1) the pressures are way to great to be able to aim this
“pencil” down the well hole, and 2) the well pipe integrity is shot and you really need to seal it for the full length of the well if you come in from the top as it is not clear how damaged the well pipe is and at what points. Is that even feasible to push this new pipe all the way down?

I’ve heard that BP was trying to preserve the well for use later, at first. they will deny it, of course, but their reputation is less than zero. I tend to agree that BP cold have made it worse, they certainly did with their failed Top kill. I also agree that these dispersants are crap and Obama should have ordered tankers here in the first week under his total authority granted via US code Section 1321 (c).

There were a lot of fuckups here, including Obama ignoring it for the first several weeks, hoping it would go away, I suspect. Still, the first problem, the first fault, is BP. Obama and Thad Allen’s (BP’s Parrot) faulty response is the second.

Thank you for your answer.

If the pressure was as great as they claim, they should not have been able to set that cap on top of the well like they did, and their aim was pretty good for that, and to have stuck that wand in the other pipe before that.

Can You even emagine how much a mile of that size pipe weighs, the pressure of the well could blow it out if it was loose, but it’s being lowered from the rig, and it’s full weight is pushing down from the surface as it would be lowered and pushed into the well.

As for the breached casing or bad cement job the longer one lets that well blow, the more the ground outside the hole or casing is eroded and the more chance it will blow out around the well.

The time to have done this was as soon as possible.