A few hours ago, Admiral Allen and BP made separate announcements that the Macondo well at Mississippi Canyon Block 252, has been successfully killed from the bottom by the relief well. After 2 months of keeping the relief well on hold while the BP/US government partnership undertook various high risk operations from the top of the well, they've finally completed the kill that should have be done long ago. They also announced that they will now permanently plug and abandon all the wells involved, including the Macondo well and the two relief wells. I would expect that BP will sell their interest in this property to another offshore operator for eventual redrilling and production of this large oil reservoir. For the first time since this crisis started, Allen called the well "dead". BP said that the casing and annulus were "sealed".
This catastrophe, lasting 152 days, killed 11 good men, spilled 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, killing countless sea life and costing thousands of jobs has been an odyssey for everyone involved. BP was at all times opaque in its communication, spending tens of millions of dollars in public relations, pretending to be forthcoming when being everything but; the US government served as its enabler, even allowing BP to conceal key information including the actual flow rate of the well.
The environmental damage will take years to understand; the legal battles will also drag on for years. In the meantime, the deepwater industry has learned a lot from this disaster; let's hope they actually use this knowledge to make this kind of exploration safer so this never happens again.
Thanks for the confirmation Bob. My confirmation it really is sealed is to hear it from you.
Appreciate all the hard work and time you put in and of course, your expertise and insight, to keep us up to date.
Bob, your reporting of the Macondo disaster has been an invaluable public service. The well is plugged, but the story is far from over. I'm sure you'll continue to keep us informed as the story transitions into "lessons learned" (or quite likely lessons ignored) plus the long term economic and environmental recoveries. Overall, the Daily Hurricane is a fine little blog and has earned its space in my select group of morning coffee bookmarks. Kudos all!
Thanks for keeping it in english for us non-industry folks, Bob. Yours has been the perspective that so many of us have counted on to provide some real information in this obfuscation exercise.
I am elated that the relief well worked! Congratulations to Boots & Coots (the guys in charge of drilling the relief well).
Now if scientists and reporters could just be allowed to see where the oil still needs to be cleaned up ...
What about the oil bubbles seeping out at the mudline?
Video from September 19:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8St1sX6BTls
Since it has been successfully killed from the bottom by the relief well and they are going to permanently plug the wells, will it still be cost efficient to drill again later on?
I think the Admiral is confused, and that BP is correct in that the casing and annulus were sealed, it still has to be plugged. That makes more sense to me, but then I could be wrong.
I agree, I think they just might try to sell this off.
Wouldn't it be something if someone would buy it, who wants to try to clean up the gulf.
Unfortunately, I don't believe it can be totally cleaned, it's to big of an area.
Just think, if the Gulf was designated for clean up efforts, the Gulf marine life is after all becoming endangered or extinct.
It would be nice to clean it up the correct way making it the best it can be.
I don't think the oil company's would like that to much.
BP has left us with a bad taste for oil company's. They did take risks, we have been served lies after lies, people lost their jobs/business, people lost their lives, many are sick not knowing if they will survive.
The gulf is a toxic experimental soup, the beaches and the wet lands are full of toxins and oil, and so on and so on.
I don't agree with BP decisions, they were greedy and non caring.
I do believe they dumped those toxins because it was cost efficient for them to sink the proof of oil.
However, I don't under stand why our Government officials backed them up and still are doing this? What is their reason?
It is known that these chemicals are toxic. BP can't use those chemicals in their Country, yet we allowed it here.
Our officials should be taking tests and going beyond what is needed.
This Situation May Eventually, Effect Us All.
We are still seeing the media being blocked, independent scientists getting harassed, people getting sicker, fish dying everywhere.
What about our crops, water, air, people, marine life, and so on?
People are getting very upset especially in the gulf, for good reason.
It is time to be honest, lay out an organized plan, so we can be on the same page and work together.
Dishonestly and hiding things only causes mistrust and anger.
Macondo - RIP - Hope It Stays That Way
Just curious, eljefebob-
DISCLAIMER-SINCE A LOT OF YOU THINK I'M A CARD-CARRYING RIGHT-WING NUT AND I GUESS MY BRAND OF SATIRE IS NOT WELL UNDERSTOOD HERE, BUT I'M REALLY A YELLOW-DOG DEMOCRAT-
Do you think that the oil industry understands that it cannot carry on business as usual and(1) cannot police itself and now has to submit to mandatory federal regulation; and(2)has sufficiently reformulated disaster plans and restocked equipment to allow deep water drilling to resume before the November elections?