BP Bottom Kill Operation for Oil Spill Planned For After Labor Day

BP has spent the last weeks pressure-testing its ruptured well to determine if the compromised well can be safely and permanently plugged using a bottom-kill procedure. Working closely with Thad Allen, the director of the government’s oil spill response team, BP intends to carry out a sequence of actions that will, indeed, finally disable the blown-out well responsible for spewing close to 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico from the beginning of the oil spill disaster on April 20 to the successful capping of the well on July 15. The BP oil spill is the world’s worst accidental oil spill.

BP intends to flush out the well’s failed blow-out preventer to ensure that there is no residual material that will pose a problem during the final BP “bottom-kill” operation. A new blow-out preventer that can withstand the considerable pressures likely to be generated will then be installed. Assuming all goes well, BP will commence its “bottom-kill” operation. BP expects to complete that procedure sometime during the week after Labor Day.

The “bottom-kill” procedure is intended to be a permanent solution to the oil spill. One of BP’s newly constructed relief wells will intercept the ruptured well and use cement and mud to plug the ruptured well from below.

Sources: cnn