BP Top Kill Maneuver – BP Hopes to Stop Oil Spill

With options to contain the oil spill is getting less and less, another procedure will be attempted today by BP. It is called the BP Top Kill maneuver. BP engineers armed with 50,000 barrels of dense mud and a fleet of robotic submarines would try to plug the gushing oil well a mile below the surface.

BP poised for ‘top kill’ to try to plug spill

BP has warned the public that the top kill might not be a pretty process. The company is providing a live feed from the sea bottom showing the oil gushing from the end of a broken pipe. The top kill will likely mean mud spewing from the pipe as well.

“Those of you who are watching it live on the feed should be aware there will be changes to the flow patterns. That should not be interpreted as either success or failure. It is simply a consequence of the impact of beginning to pump mud,” Hayward said on NBC.

The top kill maneuver would be the first stab at shutting down the well since the April 20 blowout and fire that killed 11 workers on the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon.