BP Containment Cap Update

Crews have been making preparations over the weekend to remove the stacking cap and blow out preventer over the blown out well in the gulf that dumped hundreds of millions of gallons of oil into gulf waters. They need to bring the b-o-p to the surface so they can inspect it to find out what caused The Deepwater Horizon to explode. But, they'll have to wait a little longer. Incident Commander Retired Admiral Thad Allen says, "For now we are in a hold pending further calming of the weather out here".

When WKRG News 5 landed at ground zero a couple of weeks ago for a rare tour of one of the rigs that had been drilling a back up relief well, the seas were calm. But, now Allen says seas are six to eight feet. BP engineers and the science team have concerns about suspending the capping stack and blow out preventer five thousand feet below the community of vessels in rough seas.

"When the capping stacks and the blow out preventers are suspended..they are suspended from a very long piece of pipe and the period of waves. In other words the distance of time of the swell actually creates a pendulum type action. So you have two forces acting on these lifting mechanisms...whether there at the riser pipe or the drill string", says Allen.

He says a safety margin has been built into removing the stacking pipe and the blow out preventer, and right now they're already a little over that safety margin.
Admiral Allen also says the weather looks like its going to hold at least for the next two or three days.