Allen: Static Kill Completed, Moving On To Finish Relief Wells

by Miles Wolf Tamboli - Talk Radio News Service

National Incident Commander Admiral Thad Allen provided an update via teleconference, Friday, on BP and the Coast Guard’s newest developments in finishing up the highly praised “static kill,” which has now successfully filled a large portion of the casing pipe of the deepwater Macondo oil well, responsible for the deaths of 11 rig workers and nearly 5 million barrels of sweet Louisiana crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, with heavy drilling mud, and now cement. 

Ret. Admiral Allen told the press that BP has now injected a layer of fluid on top of the cement, and a layer of drilling mud on top of that. The static kill has essentially ensured that no more oil will leak from the Macondo well, said Allen on Thursday.  The team will now begin pressure testing to keep track of the curing of the cement.

“We are unequivocally committed to completing the relief wells, drilling into the annulus, and cementing the annulus as the bottom portion of this kill, and there is no indication at all … that we completed this with the static kill from the top,” reminded Allen.

Rigs will begin to drill August 8; “we expect to be somewhere around the annulus around the 13th of August, and the drilling portion into the annulus is expected to occur somewhere between the 14th and the 15th of August.”

The annulus is the open space between the casing pipe that leads from the reservoir to the ocean floor, and the surrounding rock.

“We do not believe that a second try will be needed to go into the casing pipe because the indications are from the cement that was put in from the top is that the casing has been filled with cement down at that level,” said Allen; “If the pressure checks hold and we have indication the casing has been sealed off with cement, then the killing of the well would require only going into the annulus”