Coast Guard unwilling to assume BP timetable

[Cetacea]

Source: MarketWatch

Reports that BP said it would finish a relief well by July 27 offered no comfort for Thad Allen, the recently retired Coast Guard admiral, as he spoke with reporters from a staging facility in Alabama. The relief well, begun shortly after the fatal April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig that resulted in the blown-out well, is designed to permanently halt the flow of oil into the waters of the Gulf.

Original estimates were that the relief well would clamp the renegade conduit by mid-August, but BP told The Wall Street Journal that the well could be stopped between July 20 and July 27.

"It could happen, but I'm not going to assume that," Allen told a crowd of reporters. "I know from being around you people that we need to underpromise and overdeliver."

A point of concern for Allen was whether BP would encounter leaking oil once it penetrated the rogue well with the driller used to bore the relief well. The relief well, which is angling toward the rogue well, is several hundred feet away and believed to be about 7 to 10 days from hooking up...

Read more: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/coast-guard-unwilling-to-assume-bp-timetable-2010-07-08