Top Kill

Well, there is good new and there is bad news.

The good news -- BP says that it hopes "to start the procedure known as a "top kill" by Sunday". If it works, it will shut down the oil flow.

The bad news -- It could take several weeks to complete. If that's true, why have they waited so long to start? After all, their other efforts, except for the relief well, have been directed at capturing the escaping oil, not stopping the flow.

What is a "top kill", you ask?

Here is a picture of what will be done.

Here is a little more information about how a "top kill" will be done. It appears that they have been collecting data on the BOP for a while in order to do this, which brings up another question.

Doug Suttles, BP Chief Operating Officer, said, "We had to get certain diagnostic information and measurements across the BOP and damaged riser. We have been gathering that data over time."

They should have had most of this data already. Why didn't they? I mean, they should have all the design data available on the BOP. Yes, they had to assess the damage, if any, but I would think that they should have had most of the information already on hand -- unless their documentation is about as good as it is on their other deep water platform, Atlantis.

Atlantis is a whole other potential problem!