Final Well Kill May Begin This Week

by Miles Wolf Tamboli - Talk Radio News Service

In his daily operational update Monday, National Incident Commander Admiral Thad Allen told reporters that “the job before us now is to finish the relief well… and then seal the well with cement from the bottom up. That will, in our view, at that point, permanently kill the well.”

“We expect that some time towards the end of the week we’ll be in a position to intercept the annulus and commence the kill,” he said.

In the meantime, the response team is moving forward, focusing their attention on cleaning the beaches and wetlands impacted by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Over the next week, Allen will be meeting with local leaders and parish presidents along the coast to coordinate a stronger local response.

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”

As BP Fills Well With Cement, Response Team Moves To Recovery

by Miles Wolf Tamboli - Talk Radio News Service

In an operational update in Washington, Thursday, National Incident Commander Thad Allen stated; “the decision was made last night that the well was in the proper condition where we could cement it. That would increase the integrity of the well, as far as potential leaking of hydrocarbons, and would actually enhance our ability to do the bottom kill … this is not the end, but it will virtually assure us that there will be no chance of oil leaking into the environment.”

After successfully pumping heavy drilling mud into the Macondo deepwater well in the Gulf of Mexico, BP was authorized by the Coast Guard last night to begin cementing the well - a large step toward killing the well once and for all.  Cementing began around 8:30 am EST, Thursday, and may take up to two days to cure enough for drilling to resume on two crucial relief wells.

Once the cement has set for a “certain amount of time,” drilling into the annulus (the area between the pipeline and the rock) should take five to seven days, according to top officials.

“this is not the end, but it will virtually assure us that there will be no chance of oil leaking into the environment,” continued Allen; “I will say once again to the people of the Gulf that we are committed to finishing this cleanup, and holding BP accountable, and we will continue to do that.”

In an operational update from New Orleans that afternoon the Federal On-Scene Coordinator, Rear Admiral Paul Zukunft, explained that, 21 days since any oil has entered the Gulf from the Macondo well, he has seen evidence of recovery in heavily-oiled Barataria Bay in Louisiana. 

Zukunft described the resilience of the Gulf ecosystem, and told the press that a key goal in the next phase of the oil spill response will be the inclusion of local leaders in policy-making. He warned, however; “in terms of tar balls washing ashore, we are definitely talking months, potentially years.”

Mexico Slowly Bringing Oversight To Its Oil Industry

Robert Hune-Kalter - Talk Radio News Service

The head of a new agency within the Mexican government tasked with regulating carbon extraction said Mexico will soon be getting tougher on its largest state-owned oil company.

Juan Carlos Zepeda Molina, President of the newly created National Commission of Hydrocarbons, told a panel gathered at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., that his department will bring necessary oversight to Pemex, one of the largest companies in the world, worth hundreds of billions of dollars annually.

(Click here for a more in-depth article from the Wall Street Journal)

“Our main focus right now, is to go into Pemex and check whether Pemex has all internal procedures according to best practices. The second thing is to assign a specific regulation. The third level of regulation, as I mentioned, we have the technical assessment,” he said.

One procedure Molina finds to be of the utmost importance is to implement a double-key authorization.

“Before a critical decision is taken, I believe we have to enforce a double-key procedure to make sure certain procedures are done and that you have the concourse of more than one judgement in order to take a final decision,” said Molina.

Lourdes Melgar, an independent energy consultant studying at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., worries that Pemex has future offshore drilling plans that exceed the company’s technologies and practices.

“How does a company such as Pemex, and how do we think we can do this with such a weak regulation or nonexistent regulation, do the quantum leap from 1200 meters to 2520 meters?” said Melgar.

Melgar also worries about Mexico’s lackadaisical response to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

“One cannot just pretend nothing is going on,” she said. “Why has the Mexican government been so quiet about something that is happening right there in the Gulf of Mexico? After all it’s called the Gulf of Mexico, it’s something we share.”

Static Kill A Success, According to Officials

By Miles Wolf Tamboli - Talk Radio News Service

“Static kill,” an attempt by the Joint Oil Spill Response Team to plug the Macondo deepwater oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, has effectively stopped the leak, according to Admiral Thad Allen, the National Incident Commander.

“We now have equalized … the hydrostatic pressure of the seawater with the pressure inside the capping stack,” said Allen during a press briefing at the White House Wednesday. Allen added that he is confident, “that there will be no oil leaking into the environment.”

“We have significantly improved our chances to finally kill the well with the relief wells,” Allen said.

BP released a statement earlier in the day calling the success, “a significant milestone.”

Although the mile-deep well off the coast of Louisiana has not leaked a significant amount of oil in almost three weeks, thanks to a “stacking cap” that was placed on the leak on July 15th, many are elated that the response command has made such a crucial step in sealing the well off for good.  President Obama told a conference of AFL-CIO union leaders in Washington on Wednesday, “The long battle to stop the leak and contain the oil is finally close to coming to an end.”

The static kill began as a series of tests Tuesday afternoon, with heavy drilling mud being pumped from about 3 pm CDT until 11 pm CDT through a maze of equipment until the pressure inside the well equalized with the pressure on the sea floor, according to a statement by BP.

Workers are attempting to determine whether to follow the mud with a concrete cap for added security, or to simply move ahead with the relief wells. Either way, Allen told reporters, the next step is to complete the relief wells, as the static kill is only the preliminary portion of the final end to the leak. 

“This job will not be complete until we finish the relief well,” said Allen.