"Drilling mud not oil coming out of riser now" - BP CEO -Update on MSNBC

[flamingdem]

On Rachel's show.

They think it's going the way they want.

Her guest says they are not declaring victory at this point.

[DCBob]

1. That's what I thought.. they stopped the oil flowing but...

they wont know if the plug will hold until they stop pumping in the mud. But so far so good. Fingers x'd.

[Botany]

2. It means it is working so far ....

... they gotta go slow. But for the first time in 36 days no oil out of the leaks.


I hope it works!

[tekisui]

5. Can we see the end of the riser pipe?

I can only find video of the BOP leak. I would make sense if the BOP leak is mud, the riser would be, too. If it is indeed mud and not oil, I am hopeful for the first time in over a month.

[Botany]

8. I don't know ....

.... real tricky engineering now ..... enough mud to hold the oil / gas way down the well ... but @ a pressure / weight
that will not bust the plumbing. If mud is going down the well hole that is very good news.

However even in the short run a long term low pressure pump of mud might keep any more oil / gas from coming out.

[flamingdem]

14. I wonder if that's why the have so many tankers full of mud standing by

and that is what they mean by ...it may go on for a long time.

[Botany]

21. even if they have to low level pump drilling mud into the well for long .....

.... periods that is far better then oil/gas from spewing into the Gulf.

[truedelphi]

3. Fingers crossed, breath being held for a moment.

please, for the sake of the people, and the animals and fish and plants, and ocean health, please let it work.

[Cha]

4. Here's Hoping!

[flamingdem]

6. The color definately changed over the day

I think!

[CountAllVotes]

7. Keep Hope Alive!!

and save the planet please Creator!

:kick:

[Scurrilous]

9. K & R

:thumbsup:

[chill_wind]

10. Oh please let it be so!

K & R.

[Donnachaidh]

11. yeah, and the CEO is going to be totally believed on this?

Get some INDEPENDENT scientists to make the call please.

[amborin]

20. we definitely need this independent confirmation

some posts on the oil drum suggested that one scenario was an underground blowout; it would superficially look as if the top kill had worked, but the outcome would be much worse; the poster wondered if bp and the feds would inform us if that occurred

[eleny]

12. K&R!

[gristy]

13. video shows it still spewing

http://www.cnn.com/ Click on "LIVE: 'Top kill' underwater view Live Video" on the left

[flamingdem]

15. But the color has changed, or so they have noted, thus the Breaking News nt

[gristy]

17. Ah, ok. Good.

[FreeState]

16. They are saying thats mud not oil n/t

[backscatter712]

24. Yeah, but that's mud coming out, not oil.

That's what's supposed to happen. When they started the top-kill, they knew that mud was going to come out of the leaks, but the hope was that they'd force such a high amount of mud in, under high enough pressures, so that more mud goes in the BOP than comes out of the leaks. The remaining mud ends up going down the well, forcing the oil down, until in the end, there's a 15,000 foot vertical column of heavy mud sitting on top of the oil - that's what stops the leak - gravity. When that's done, then the well is capped with concrete injected into the BOP.

Since it looks like we're seeing mud spewing out of the ruptured riser pipe, that means things are going well.

[flamingdem]

18. BP says 24 hours will tell if oil leak plug works

Hold your breath for 24 hours more..

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100527/ts_nm/us_oil_rig_leak

HOUSTON (Reuters) – BP Plc's chief executive said a difficult deep-sea operation to plug a gushing oil well was proceeding as planned on Wednesday and the next 24 hours will determine the energy giant's success in stanching the leak deep on the Gulf of Mexico floor.

BP remained cautious about the outcome of the much anticipated "top kill" procedure, as did President Barack Obama, whose credibility stands to suffer if one of the country's worst environmental catastrophes does not end soon.

But the fact that the London-based energy giant was able to launch the complex maneuver around midday and keep it on track in the first hours was a welcome respite from a string of failures and setbacks in the 37 days since a rig blast triggered the disaster.

Undersea robots were helping to inject heavy fluids and ultimately cement pumped down about a mile to the sea-bed well, while BP chief executive Tony Hayward and U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu monitored operations together in Houston.

"The operation is proceeding as we planned it," Hayward said in a media briefing four hours after launching the top kill strategy.

"It will be another 24 hours before we know whether or not this has been successful," he added.

The embattled CEO stood by BP's 60-70 percent odds of success. But top kill, a routine procedure on the surface, has never been attempted at such depths, prompting one industry expert to predict less favorable odds.

MORE

[smalll]

28. ... 24 "business" hours.

/nt

[drm604]

19. Apparently things are looking good so far.

This is like reliving Apollo 13 and Three Mile Island at the same time. (I lived less than 90 miles from TMI).

[spanone]

22. what's pushing the mud out?

[Botany]

23. back pressure of the oil & gas

better the mud then the oil

[jimlup]

25. I'm relieved not to be seeing the methane hydrate stuff coming out.

That to me is a good sign indeed. It means that they've stopped the stuff from below at least for now. I wonder if the "mud" is oil or water soluble. I know that both are used in drilling but I don't know which they are using in this "top kill".

[Kablooie]

26. As of midnight PST it looks like it's back to oil coming out.

The mud spread around and clouded the view.
The oil shoots straight up.

It's shooting straight up and the view is clear again.

Damn.

Hope my analysis is wrong.

[lonestarnot]

29. I have to find the link again. Do you have a good one?

[BootinUp]

30. .

http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/homepage/STAGING/local_assets/bp_homepage/html/rov_stream.html

[lonestarnot]

31. Thanks Bootinup.

[BootinUp]

32. I think people are mis-judging the color

for example it appears that the plume(s) on the left are lighter in color. I don't think so, I think the lighting is only fooling us, it appears to me that plume cloud is blocking some of the light from illuminating all the plumes equally.

On the heavy cloud from earlier, this could have been from a rover disrupting the plume above the video camera location.

on edit, the farther the light is from a plume, the less it will be illuminated as well.

[laughingliberal]

27. Crossing fingers. eom