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AirTalk

Day 83: recapping the gushing BP well in the Gulf

By AirTalk Staff
Published Jul 12, 2010
Workers pull an oil containment boom into placed after it was moved out of place during high winds and waves in the past days which brought oil ashore from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico
Workers pull an oil containment boom into placed after it was moved out of place during high winds and waves in the past days which brought oil ashore from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico
(
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
)
Listen 12:54
Day 83: recapping the gushing BP well in the Gulf
BP plans to place a new 30-foot cap on the leaking oil well today that could temporarily stop oil from gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. The old cap was successfully removed Saturday. After the new cap is in place, it will undergo a 48 hour pressure test in order to see if it will be reliable in containing oil. Engineers will gradually decrease the flow of the well and, BP chief operating officer Doug Suttles says, if the cap can withstand high pressures of oil, that’s good news. If this solution is effective, BP could then permanently plug the leak with two relief wells, the first of which should be finished by mid-August. After 83 days since the explosion, is (somewhat) good news finally coming to the Gulf of Mexico?

BP plans to place a new 30-foot cap on the leaking oil well today that could temporarily stop oil from gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. The old cap was successfully removed Saturday. After the new cap is in place, it will undergo a 48 hour pressure test in order to see if it will be reliable in containing oil. Engineers will gradually decrease the flow of the well and, BP chief operating officer Doug Suttles says, if the cap can withstand high pressures of oil, that’s good news. If this solution is effective, BP could then permanently plug the leak with two relief wells, the first of which should be finished by mid-August. After 83 days since the explosion, is (somewhat) good news finally coming to the Gulf of Mexico?

Guests:

Richard Harris, correspondent, NPR News Science Desk

John Curry, a BP spokesman in New Orleans

David Pettit, Senior Attorney, Natural Resources Defense Council and director of NRDC's Southern California Air Program