Posted by ROBERT, LOUISIANA – Three attempts to pump mud and 16 tries to stuff solid material into a breached Gulf of Mexico oil well failed to stop the flow, top BP executives said Saturday, and engineers and executives with the oil giant have decided to “move on to the next option.”
That option: Place a custom-built cap to fit over the “lower marine riser package,” BP chief operation officer Doug Suttles said. BP crews were already at work Saturday to ready the materials for that option, he said.
Suttles said three separate pumping efforts and 30,000 barrels of mud — along with what chief executive officer Tony Hayward described as “16 different bridging material shots” — just didn’t do the trick.
“We have not been able to stop the flow,” a somber Suttles told reporters. ” … Repeated pumping, we don’t believe, will achieve success, so we will move on to the next option.”
The cap is on the oil is still gushing. This is ridiculous. Oil is hittng Alabama now also.