BP Says Oil Flow Has Stopped as Cap Is Tested

In this article written by Campbell Robertson and Henry Fountain, from The New York Times, they seemed uncertain about the future of the well also about government and BP decision concerning the stability of the cap. I agree with them in the aspect of the government wanting to close the well permanently as an option, I believe that the government and BP can still find a long lasting solution on capping and keeping the oil well open at the same time, the reason being that, the oil well in question is one of the major oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico. For now, the cap is an interim measure until a relief well can plug the leak for good.

For weeks, the BP spill camera — which along with terms like “top kill,” “containment dome” and “junk shot” made up a growing list of phrases that many people wish they had never learned — had shown a horrible chocolate plume of oil pouring upward from the broken blowout preventer, a symbol of government and corporate impotence. The plume has been a constant presence in the corner of TV screens, mocking reassurances from officials on the news programs who describe the latest attempt to stop the gushing.
Though the exact amount of the oil that has poured out of the well may never be known, it was suddenly and for the first time a fixed amount. The disaster was, for a little while at least, finite.
At the White House, President Obama called the development a “positive sign,” though he cautioned that the operation was still in the testing phase. “I am very pleased that there’s no oil going into the Gulf of Mexico,” Kent Wells, a senior vice president for BP said, “but we just started the test and I don’t want to create a false sense of excitement.”

After long weeks of fighting with the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, that endangered human and sea lives, and countless livelihoods were put in jeopardy, especially that of the fishermen. finally the undersea cap solution came, and it appeared to be working, so far no oil leak has been noted since the cap was put in place.


As the test began on Wednesday some hydraulic leaks were noticed, the test continued on Thursday, though it may appear for now that the BP oil spill is far, far from over, but they have certainly made a huge improvement in the attempt to stop the spill.