The Gulf of El Muerto: BP Official Admits Damage Beneath The Sea Floor

06-12-2010 • Washingtonsblog.com/

Andrea Mitchell, MSNBC: Now let me understand better what you’re saying. If that is true that it is coming up form that seabed, even the relief well won’t be the final solution to cap this thing. That means that we’ve got oil gushing up at disparate places along the ocean floor. Sen. Nelson: That is possible, unless you get the plug down low enough, below where the pipe would be breached. Indeed, loss of integrity in the well itself may explain why BP is drilling its relief wells more than ten thousand feet beneath the leaking pipes on the seafloor (and see this). Yesterday, recently-retired Shell Oil President John Hofmeister said that the well casing below the sea floor may have been compromised: [Question] What are the chances that the well casing below the sea floor has been compromised, and that gas and oil are coming up the outside of the well casing, eroding the surrounding soft rock. Could this lead to a catastrophic geological failure, unstoppable even by the relief wells?