Monday, July 19, 2010

Day 5: No evacuations planned...

It's Day 5 of a successful "well integrity test," which is governmentese for "the damned hole is still plugged."  Over the weekend, BP and the government were apparently at odds over the fate of the new capping and containment system.  The well has remained shut since Thursday afternoon.  BP, for obvious reasons, wants the well to remain shut in.  The government, for unbeknownst reasons, thinks that returning to containment and transfer to topside processing vessels should remain a viable and quick option.

Meanwhile, the doom-and-gloom crowd are in a near state of tizzy over the discovery of a hydrocarbon seep several kilometers away from the Macondo well.  Matt Simmons, an energy investor with a known short position in BP, has been telling anyone who will listen (from Dylan Ratigan to Kingworld productions) that the end of the world is upon is and that everyone should evacuate the Gulf Coast immediately to avoid impending doom.

The folks at TheOilDrum.com blog don't seem to be worried about his wild-headed theories, so I think I'll stay put.

The Deepwater Horizon Incident Timeline, which is absolutely the most popular page on this blog and as far as I can tell the only document of its kind on the web (so far), looks like it will extend a few more weeks.  The near certain success of the Development Driller Relief well is only meters away from intersecting Macondo, but the last few meters are critical and there's a lot of stop-and-go drilling left.  BP hopes to have the Macondo well intersected and bottom kill operations (hopefully) complete later this month.  But the cleanup will continue for months, if not years.

Gimme some feedback in the comments.

3 comments :

Syl said...

You are doing a great service with your blog of the oil spill, I found you through the oildrum site. Terrific time line of events. I sure hope they don't un-cap the well, that would be crazy as it seems to be working for now.

David L. said...

Thank you! Fortunately, this slow-motion disaster will come to an end, and I will go back to writing about the melty goodness of having this country governed by a center right coalition, rather than the divisive radical left cabal we have now.

Oh, and football and life on the Gulf Coast.

It really is still beautiful, here.

Syl said...

I hope you're right about that center right coalition, I can't take any more of these crazies in charge now, November can't come soon enough. I completely agree about football and the beautiful Gulf Coast. I pray it recovers as soon as can be.

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