General

BP update: “Top kill” started, stopped, restarted

Company touts success in face of failure

Yesterday, BP gave itself a big pat on the back. Its “top kill” technique—which involved pumping drilling liquids into the leaking Gulf of Mexico well to lower the pressure of gushing oil—seemed to be working. Things are “moving the way we want it to,” Robert Dudlley, BP’s managing director announced Thursday morning on NBC. “The top kill procedure… is moving along as everyone had hoped,” Coast Guard Adm. Thad W. Allen told CNN—also on Thursday morning. But it turns out that on Wednesday night, around 11 p.m, BP halted the “top kill” operation because it had stopped working. But the company only acknowledged this publicly late Thursday afternoon, after touting its success all day. No explanation has been provided.
BP is now saying that it restarted the “top kill” effort on Thursday night. In the meantime, government experts have revised earlier estimates of how much oil is leaking; they now say this current spill is the worst in U.S history.

New York Times

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