Page 5 - Well Casing News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Well casing and seal it for good at the source of the oil. that will permanently kill this well. and the coast guard says that's the only thing that will permanently kill this well. and that's what they want to see done. it'll take about another two weeks to finally know exactly when and how that well was killed. it could begin as early as thursday. they say they need about five to seven days for the cement to harden and then they will know for sure that the well is killed for good, alex. >> the government is still looking into this spill, in terms of its investigation. where does that stand? ...

Higher pressures or could pumping that extra mud in actually damage the well bore and create an even worse situation than we have now? >> what they're doing is they're going to be pumping that mud in very slowly so that they don't raise the pressure too much. of course, it has to be higher pressure than the 6,900 psi but not much more so that's not a serious problem. the issue they're trying to figure out is if they pump additional fluid in there, will the fluid and pressure be transmitted down to the reservoir and inject into the reservoir. because the fluids have to more or less open up the ...

Bp indicated they might move that to sunday night. we're watching that very closely. it will probably be five to seven days after that that they can drill from the bottom. still another 100 feet to go on the relief well. >> and are you confident that this is going to work? >> suzanne, this is not a novel type of technology. intercept wells are drilled routinely. it is novel at the depth that we're at and the intercept wells, you know, at the extreme depths that we're at but this is not new technology. our science team in houston, working with the bp engineers, had external validation and we're...

Ship, skimmers and drilling rigs all getting out of the way. but the worst case scenario never really happened because we understand that bonnie has now dissipated quite a bit. in fact, admiral thad allen is now asking that a number of those ships that had been part of the evacuation now make their way back to the area of the well. so let's check in with our rob marciano who's in gulfport, mississippi, right now. what are we hearing about the progress report, how things are resuming? >> reporter: well, first of all, they never detached the assets that were monitoring the well -- the cap's well...

It is located. but here's a question that i had. there had been some questions about the integrity. the casing in the well bore, you've already got thousands of pounds of pressure coming up from below. now that you've got the top of it sealed off, if you introduce more pressure with mud in the top, do you risk the possibility of, if there are any weaknesses in that well casing, blowing it out with a static kill operation? >> well, john, that's obviously a certain concern. but personally, i don't really see it as a big issue. the standard operation, when you begin to lose control of a well, is ...