Finally, after almost 3 months of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, it has now stopped leaking!
BP designed a custom-made 75 tons heavy cap to contain the oil from flowing in the open sea. I'm very excited about this and I don't want to destroy this moment what must be a moment of happines, especially for all directly and indirectly (we all) involved people. For me, it's a moment of joy too. But ... we must remember that the present closing of the leak is aimed to be temporarily and it is mainly a test (called the '(well) integrity test') to explore the strength of the well... and if you ask me, it will be a test of the strength of the casing too!
The pressure will be monitored closely. Each 6 hours, a decision of continuation or cancellation will be made based on the provided pressure data.
If pressure remains high for the upcoming 48 hours, meaning that the oil has no other way out and there are no other (yet invisible) leaks in the well or casing (or worse: ocean floor...), this will mean a condition for a permanent stopping of the oil leak due to the use of the two relieve wells has been established. This permanent solution will be tested on late August. In the meantime (and if the pressure on the present cap sustains,) there may be decided to keep this cap onto the oil leak, meaning it will be completely shutted down for the upcoming weeks, which is good news to (ocean) life.
The pressure dropping will be a bad sign meaning that solutions to permanently close the leak will need to be revised. In this case, the test will be stopped after 6 hours, removing the cap from the leak to prevent possibly further rupturing of a new leak (in the well, casing or ocean floor) which may be far more difficult to stop.
This tests certainly holds dangers, because some sources reported already visible ruptures in the ocean floor and in the casing (e.g. on YouTube, you can see a film of an ex Shell employee stating that there's no chance the case isn't ruptured after such a big explosion, of course, it is likely that Shell will not hurry to spread good news about its concurrent). This will mean that there's no known way to stop the oil from flowing, except maybe bombing it ... which will hold evident risks and an uncertain outcome.
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