US Gov sez to BP "Help us or get out"

[Rain]

I laughed the most at the lady who was screaming while trying to set the coffee on fire.

So, who watched the Presidential Address?

[Kerame Pxel Nume]

It's getting worse and more worse. The commenter claims to be a oil professional and sketches a very frightening scenario:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6593#comment-648967

In a few words: The well pipe is like a hose with a nozzle, and the blowout damaged it all the way down. And just like a hose with a lot of punctures, if you pinch off the nozzle, the stream out of the leaks increases. In the case of the oil well pinching off the well (either by the BOP or by Top Kill or whatever) will increase the outflow from underground leaks. In any case the blowby from the leaks erodes the soil. But the soil is required to excert pressure on the well. Without this pressure the leaks will get larger and larger, and the erosion worse until the whole thing collapses. If that happens the whole oil resorviour will spill into the ocean. The only thing to prevent this, are relief wells. But it's now a race between the structural collapse and the relief well drilling.

Some time could be bought by cutting the riser pipe just after the BOP, at the expense of increasing the immediate oil flux. It's a choice between further polluting the Golf but nature will eventually recover. Or the whole thing collapses and what happens then nobody can forsee.

[Kerame Pxel Nume]

Ok, now I can do my vote on if the BP CEOs should be convicted. BP knew perfectly well about the problems, the cracks in the well casing and the risks weeks before the desaster.

http://preview.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-17/bp-struggled-with-cracks-in-gulf-well-as-early-as-february-documents-show.html

After the first cracks in the well were discovered, the only sane reaction would have been to abandon this particular well/drilling, fill it up with cement and drill a new one.