Well Pipe News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Not proceed with the mud and cement from the relief well? >> exactly, andrea. what they are trying to determine is if in doing the static kill when they pump the mud and cement down through the top of the well to kill the well from the top if somehow admiral allen said they were a victim of their own success and they also cemented the well from the bottom. now, you remember that right from the get-go admiral allen said that had to be done to consider this well dead. and the only way to really do that at the time, they thought, was to drill this relief well this did he pressure tests last night...

Pumping pressure, too, and that should have the mud pushing the oil back down through the well pipe, but officials are taking it very slow, very cautious approach and they say even they don't know when the process will be complete. although they say it could involve up to 70 hours of pumping. anderson? >> how do they know they've reached the goal? how do they know it's been stopped? >> reporter: yeah. that's a good question. it's in that word static, anderson. they're taking periodic readings and in case -- in this case when we use the word static is not moving. static means not moving. right ...

That green light at the static kill and so far, anderson, no signs of anything going wrong with it either. >> i should point out, tom, once again, we are reading tea leaves and waiting for press releases from bp because they have continued to refuse -- even though they once said they would do it -- to have some real-time explanation of what's going on in the live picture. correct? >> reporter: exactly. we get periodic updates through press releases or a brief phone conference. that's about it. >> so we don't know -- we won't know for a while -- this ship is, what, pumping a lot of barrels of h...

Water. they're steadily increasing the pumping pressure, too, and that should have the mud pushing the oil back down through the well pipe, but officials are taking it very slow, very cautious approach and they say even though don't know when the process will be complete. although they say it could involve up to 70 hours of pumping. anderson? >> how do they know they've reached the goal? how do they know it's been stopped? >> reporter: yeah. that's a good question. it's in that word static, anderson. they're taking periodic readings and in case -- in this case when we use the word static is no...

Approach and they say even they don't know when the process will be complete. although they say it could involve up to 70 hours of pumping. anderson? >> how do they know they've reached the goal? how do they know it's been stopped? >> reporter: yeah. that's a good question. it's in that word static, anderson. they're taking periodic readings and in case -- in this case when we use the word static is not moving. static means not moving. right now, i want to show you this little demonstration here. the oil is pushing up very hard inside that well pipe, about 7,000 pounds per square inch. they're...