BP Keeps Lying, Claims Progress on Efforts to Cap Well

June 6, 2010 (LPAC)—BP officials and Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen reported this morning that the containment cap that was lowered onto the runway oil well in the Gulf of Mexico is beginning to work. Allen reported, this morning, that engineers had so far been able to bring up about 6,000 barrels of oil (hardly a drop in the bucket), but that the vents on the cap were still open. The admiral said the engineers are hesitant to close the vents because they're afraid that the cap will then clog with hydrates, solids that form from the oil under pressure and in the cold temperature at the 5,000 foot depth. The formation of hydrates fouled an earlier attempt to cap the well about a month ago. In other words, they have no idea whether the latest effort to cap the well will actually succeed—and won't know for several more days.

Estimates for how much oil the cap is collecting range from 5 to 10% of the oil leaking out of the well, although BP officials say their "goal" is to get that to 90%. So far, the latest effort by BP has managed to capture about 1,000 barrels of oil a day—out of an estimated 12-19,000 barrels a day gushing from the well.

Meanwhile, oil is now washing up on beaches as far away as Pensacola, Florida. Computer simulations by the National Center for Atmospheric Research suggest that the oil, once it becomes entrained in the fast moving Loop Current around Florida, could then be carried up the East Coast as far north as the Cape Hatteras before turning eastwards into the central Atlantic, though no one knows what its impact will be.

And still, President Obama, while madly searching for some emotions to display to the American people, has still refused to declare a national emergency, now entering week seven of the disaster in the Gulf.