BP successfully clogs drain your well located in the Gulf of Mexico

The oil company BP said Thursday it has completed its well plugging with cement damaged in the Gulf of Mexico, in an operation close to the U.S. government bringing an end to the worst environmental disaster in its history.
The success of capping assumes completion of the operation 'static kill' (static phase), the most ambitious oil company has undertaken so far to stop the leak.

However, retired Adm. Thad Allen, who coordinates the response to dumping by the U.S. government said Thursday in a press conference that this "is not the end" of the disaster that has ravaged the waters of Gulf, but "a key step to ensure that no more oil is poured into the ocean."
Allen BP gave the green light to proceed with the introduction of cement into the well on Wednesday, hours after the company announced the success of the first phase of the strategy of sealing, which was to push the oil to the bottom of the tank with the injection of more than 2,300 barrels of heavy mud.

Engineers working for the sealing of the leak were inclined to proceed with the fuel tank cap without waiting to complete the excavation of an auxiliary shaft, which is considered the ultimate solution to landfill.
The auxiliary shaft of about 5,500 meters deep, will close the bottom of the tank that caused the spill by a process dubbed "bottom-kill '(removal from the bottom), through a new round of heavy mud and cement .
The foundation of the auxiliary shaft, provided by BP on 15 August, will be the real beginning of the last phase of the operation to seal the well, which has shed 4.9 million barrels of oil into the ocean since April, when a platform the company collapsed and fell on the tank.

74% of the total crude oil released into the ocean since been collected, burned, vaporized or decomposed by natural processes, according to a scientific report presented on Wednesday the energy adviser to the White House, Carol Browner.
However, according to Browner, the clean and "the help of Mother Nature" will be crucial in the coming months to offset the crude oil that remains on the coast and floating in a residual microscopic particles in the ocean.

The U.S. president, Barack Obama said Wednesday that the fight to contain the spill "is finally coming to an end" and praised the efforts to stem the black tide "has turned on its head" the lives of thousands of people.
On the other hand, Allen said Thursday that the administration "will continue its efforts to compensate" for those affected in the southeastern states of the country and will continue to press BP to assume "full responsibility" in the disaster.
It should be noted that the engineers who carried out the injection of heavy mud yet to determine whether there is any leakage outside the main duct, a process that requires complicated shots of measuring pressure fluctuations in the well failed.
"It seems that the mud pump step directly from the pipeline", on Wednesday said Kent Wells, executive vice president of BP. "We've reached a good point, but we must now make it permanent," he said.

BP gets completely seal oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico

Oil giant BP has reported that for the first time in 87 days, has managed to completely stop the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Thanks to the important test done to test the effectiveness of the new containment hood installed over the subsea well in which the leak occurred since 22 April, "there is no flow of oil in the Gulf of Mexico," said vice president of BP exploration and production, Kent Wells.

In a statement, the oil firm said that "during the tests, the three openings are closed, which for all practical purposes closed well ... Although we can not guarantee it is not expected to pour oil into the sea during the test" .

After closing the valves, the engineers began monitoring the pressure. Pressure is expected to continue rising, because if it remains low, it means that there could be leaking oil.
Resistance Testing

BP, the company responsible for the spill, took over the endurance of the bell after being suspended last night by detecting a crack in the shutter.

"The tests began today in accordance with procedures approved by the National Incident Command" and until they develop normally, the statement said. The first tests will last at least six hours and could take up to 48 hours, the statement said.

The company warns that even stop oil spill into the sea during the trial period "that does not mean that the flow of oil and gas well has stopped permanently."

Throughout the testing period will be measuring the pressure inside the hood. If it is too low, it will point to the existence of another similar to the detected leak last night and have to start all over again.

In a news conference Thursday, the coordinator of the anti-dumping by the U.S. government, Admiral Thad Allen, said that if there is a high pressure will be good news, because it will mean that the device works as properly and is able to withstand the flow of oil.

If the tests are positive and the bell can become operational, would be connected by pipelines to ships in the area. According to Allen, the system would be able to transfer up to 80,000 barrels per day, an amount greater than that flowing from the well failed. It is estimated that currently flow from the well between 35,000 and 60,000 barrels of oil a day.

The hood is designed only as a provisional remedy to the disaster, the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history and the coming Thursday in its day number 87. The permanent solution will come when completed two wells drilling subsidiary, through which they inject a mixture of heavy clay and cement permanently seal the well.

The spill began after the April 20, for reasons still unknown, broke out and sank in the sea oil rig 'Deepwater Horizon', maintained by the oil company BP, accident that killed eleven workers.

U.S. calls for more emergency aid to Europe to curb oil spill

U.S. authorities requested more urgent assistance from the European Union (EU) in their efforts to contain the oil slick to the Gulf of Mexico, confirmed to dpa vierns spokesman humanitarian aid and crisis management of the European bloc, Ferran Tarradellas .
"Last night in Brussels has received a new order for the U.S. side. So far, the European Commission has received confirmation of support from Sweden, Germany, Norway, United Kingdom, and the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA ) "he said.
Among the teams that these countries have made provision, as Tarredellas, are "different pumping systems to try to stop the oil slick."
The Brussels executive is confident that "soon" over EU countries join the effort. The request for new U.S. aid has been sent to the European Civil Protection Mechanism (MIC), which coordinates Brussels, the spokesman said.
The second request

This is the second time in less than a month that Europe extends a hand to the U.S. to contain the spill.

Last month, EU commissioner for humanitarian aid and international cooperation, Kristalina Georgieva, responded positively to an urgent request from U.S. to European Union (EU), with Spanish media and the Netherlands, assist in the clearance of areas affected by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
"We wanted to show our solidarity with those affected by this tragedy. As one would expect, Europe is next to his American friends," said the curator.
On the other hand, Ferran Tarradellas said that Europe is "shoulder to shoulder" with U.S. President, Barack Obama, and yet the American people to try to mitigate the ecological catastrophe.

"At this time particularly difficult for the United States, the European Commission, and by extension the whole EU, we are hand in hand with our American friends," he said.The spokesman said the U.S. has asked Europe to install three systems in the area of suction and pumping of oil that can operate from ships specially prepared for these tasks in deep water, for example at the point where it is produced from crude oil leak the platform of the British multinational BP.

The White House calls for BP executives to meet with Obama

The top executives of BP have been summoned to a meeting in Washington on June 16 in which the president Barack Obama, to talk about the disaster caused by the discharge of the Gulf of Mexico.

The letter was sent Thursday by the Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, the chairman of the Board of Directors of BP, Carl-Henric Svanberg, who called the meeting to talk about the "devastating" discharge, which says that BP is "financially responsible."

In the letter, Allen tells the president of the Governing Body leading to the meeting to the directors as it deems appropriate, so may also assist BP CEO Anthony Hayward, who has led the company's response to disaster.

By U.S. government officials will attend, although the letter states that "President Obama will participate in a portion of the meeting."The meeting will take place next Wednesday June 16, just a day after Obama returned from a trip to the states of Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, to check the damage left by the disaster.
It will be Obama's fourth trip to the area affected by the spill from the start, after the explosion and sinking at sea on April 20, the rig 'Deepwater Horizon. "

However, so far Obama had only visited Louisiana, and had not yet moved to the coast of neighboring states, and also affected by the spill. It will also be the longest visit made after the discharge, it will last for two days, Monday and Tuesday.

Obama has not so far met with senior executives of British Petroleum, a company which the Government responsible for the spill.

In fact, in the letter sent on Thursday, Allen makes it clear that BP is "financially responsible" for all the costs of disposal, "which includes efforts to stop the discharge of the well and reduce the spread of oil, protect the coast and mitigate damage and provide long-term support for individuals and communities to recover. "

"The dumping of (oil platform) BP Deepwater Horizon is having a profound impact on the lives of Americans in the Gulf of Mexico, and time is essential to resolve these issues," says Allen.

Add, at the end of the letter, that "our government will not rest or be satisfied until it stops the flow of oil from the well, is contained and cleaned the stain, and the inhabitants of the Gulf are able to resume their lives."

It confirms the existence of underwater oil stains in the Gulf

Jane Lubchenco, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has confirmed the existence of offshore oil stains in the Gulf of Mexico. "They are very small concentrations," he said, "but definitely there is oil under the surface."

The news comes ten days after the chief executive of BP, Tony Hayward, denied the existence of underwater spots and after three weeks that the very head of the NOAA said it was "premature" to reach that conclusion.

"I suspected, but it's good to have confirmation," Jane Lubchenco has qualified, part of the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico today, the International Ocean Day "does exactly 50 days.The existence of spots submarine was first detected by scientists at the University of South Florida, who collected samples at great depths and over 60 kilometers of where the platform exploded Deepwater Horizon.

At least half a dozen researchers from many other universities in southern United States, aboard the Pelican, certified the presence of oil in the middle layers of the Gulf of Mexico and blamed the controversial use of dispersants."Oil is on the surface," said however, the BP chief executive Tony Hayward on an expedition chartered on May 30 and who had access to various media. "Oil has a specific gravity, which is half that of water," said Hayward, as an expert and geologist. "And it tends to rise to the surface by the difference of gravity."

A researcher involved in the group of scientists that advises the Obama Administration, Ira Leifer, has meanwhile raised the alarm to the latest BP maneuvers to try to contain the spill.
Liefer, who works at the Department of Chemical Engineering, University of California at Santa Barbara, says that the amount of oil spilled may have increased substantially since BP decided to cut the oil well tubing to implement containment hood.
The British company says that urgent action is serving to capture and 2.4 million liters of oil per day. Leifer believes however that the flow of oil escaping from under the hood is "well above" that was poured before the operation carried out last weekend.

Coast Guard Commander Thad Allen admitted yesterday that the new flow of the spill is still "a mystery" and that one of the priorities for the next few days will be just "reevaluate" the latest estimates, made three weeks ago.

The oil spill has already cost BP more than 1,000 million euros

The British oil giant British Petroleum has already spent EUR 1.049 million trying to contain oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, not counting the 300 million pledged for reconstruction of artificial islands in Louisiana, as announced by the company.
This assessment responds to the expenditure on the tasks of containment of the spill, the drilling of wells, grants to the states of the Gulf of Mexico, claims paid and federal spending.
On Sunday, BP claimed that are taking significant strides in combating oil spill and that the group is picking up "most" of oil that comes out of the leak.
The container recently installed on the flight is leading more than 1,500 tonnes of crude per day on a boat on the surface safely, in his words.
Despite this initial assessment and containment efforts, the oil is cautious and says that it is still "early" to say with certainty the success of container installed last week.
In addition, the British oil announced in the same statement that he expects a second system of containment, which would increase the amount of oil captured from your well broken, will be available for operation in mid-June.
The system for capturing oil through a manifold, which was developed before the failed maneuver "top kill" to block the well, will add to an already deployed containment lid and could allow BP to capture almost all the oil.