July 20, 2010

Small leaks spring at BP oil well; cap to stay in place for now

Small leaks spring at BP oil well; cap to stay in place for now

This is good reporting about the present status of the Macondo well and the ongoing hearings into the events preceding the explosion.

The story contains some of the gory details from the hearings about conditions on the Deepwater Horizon rig in the hours before the explosion on April 20, 2010.

The well now seems to be leaking small amounts of oil and gas from the seabed near the well. The new cap in place for the past four days seems to have increased pressure in the well, as would be expected. The concern is that this pressure increase may be causing oil and gas to find cracks in the overbearing rock above the oil reservoir and leak into the sea water despite the enormous pressure of a mile high water column.

This whole business of capping the blown out well is a mind-boggling complicated affair. Let's hope the decisions made are based on technical and not legal/political reasons.

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