Cementing Job Completed
Jane Van Ryan
Posted August 6, 2010
"Not with a bang but a whimper." - T.S. Eliot
The well that roared to life in April and took the lives of 11 men was drowned in cement yesterday. The Macondo well, which raged for about three months, quietly succumbed as engineers methodically pumped cement through the cap on the top of the well, pushing the pressurized oil and gas down thousands of feet and back into the reservoir.
To be doubly sure that the well has been killed, BP will intercept the wellbore with a relief well and initiate a "bottom kill" procedure which will squeeze cement into portions of the wellbore that might not have been accessible through the well's cap. BP projects that the relief well will intercept Macondo in mid-month, weather permitting.