For those actually interested in the details and trying to make sense of the images/video from the live feed this diary can be a place to discuss them.
First, here's BP's technical briefing from yesterday describing the various things they are considering trying. (I STRONGLY RECOMMEND WATCHING THIS!)
Starting on Saturday, people viewing the live feed noticed that there were some strange events happening at the main leak pipe typically shown in the live feeds from the video.
A blog post by some guy named monkeyfister claimed these were sub-sea blowouts. After further reading & analysis it appears these were the first tests of the planned top kill operation.
Live Video Links:
http://www.bp.com/...
http://www.cnn.com/ (look for Live: underwater view of leak in the left column)
BTW, these are just my opinions based on what I have seen/read thus far.
As many of us watched this afternoon and early evening, we started seeing periodic episodes where all heck would break loose and tons of material would be spewing from the large leak pipe followed by debris showers and then things would clear up again showing about the same leak as before.
This appears to be BP testing the top kill pumps. I think it is likely that they were running the pumps up for varying periods of time and pumping pressure to get an idea of what would happen both inside BOP (blow out preventer) and what would happen to the leaks at both the main leak where the Riser Insertion Tool was located and at the second leak area where the riser pipe bends > 90 deg. just above the BOP and the LMRS (lower marine riser stack).
The purpose of these tests would be to see whether the pumping of heavy viscous fluids into the BOP would produce the expected pressure changes inside the well and secondly whether the rush of material through the leaking tubes would significantly increase the additive spill rate at the two known leak sites. If the spill rate is not significantly increased then they can assume that most of the oil is being restricted by the partially closed rams inside the BOP and thus it's ok to pump wide open for the top kill procedure.
If on the other hand the spill rate increases significantly following these tests and or the pressures achieved inside the BOP do not pass muster then the whole top kill procedure becomes more complicated and they may elect to try it anyway (open up the hose, we'll try and plug it anyway). If that fails, the next thing they propose to do (see the video I linked in the intro) is to cut the LMRP clean, and lower a partially sealing top hat onto it to try and capture the whole leak.
Well, the video from CNN's live feed is now showing the leaks at the spot above the LMRP at the bend and it's considerably worse than it was a week ago. However I don't know how it compares with what the leak rate was before they started trying these tests.
Here's a couple of screen grabs I took of the leak closest to the BOP.
you can compare that with the images and videos in my last diary
Anyway, this appears to be worse but without a solid analysis of the relative leaks at both spots it's hard to say what the assessment is on what we can see. Perhaps more importantly, we do not know how the pressures in the well changed and whether or not they got a good indication of being able to push mud down the well or not.
Here's hoping they consider the results good and that the top kill will happen tomorrow.
What do you folks think?
update 1: added live feed links and made minor typo/grammar fixes (yes I know there are many more)