This afternoon, Admiral Thad Allen, National Incident Commander overseeing the Deepwater Horizon Response explained to the media that there had been a series of morning meetings in Houston with his science team and BP reps. Topic number one: discussion about efforts to "remobilize assets at the source and make preparations for installing the casing and moving on with the static kill and the bottom kill as I had briefed in the past."
Here are some highlights from the admiral's talk:
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Development Driller II is now running the riser pipe down. They have 67 joints to complete; they've done 39 of those as of about 10:30 Central Daylight time this morning, needing about five more hours to do that. "They are planning to latch on to the well around midnight tonight. Development Driller II which was involved in drilling the backup well is returning to site and will start running their riser today," Allen said.
- Q4000 is inspecting the yellow pad, which is the control device that's placed below sea level to operate hydraulics. Its valve was replaced and will be installed later today and then will begin preparations for the static kill operations.
Further, Allen said that the Gecko Topaz, which is the seismic research vessel, is back in the field. "And we will attempt to have the Gecko Topaz make more passes tomorrow."
The stack pressure has gone above 6,900 PSI (a measurement of water pressure potential) and currently stands at 6,904 PSI. And the temperature has been steady around 40 degrees Fahrenheit. "These are both indicators of a - and consistent with a - well that has integrity. We'll continue to work throughout the day. We have a number of sorties up today looking at the condition of the boom, where it's gone and looking for oil."
As was briefed by Jane Lubchenco yesterday from NOAA, Allen said they expect some oil that was there before the storm to be displaced.
He added that through air surveillance "based on the movement of the storm and the prevailing winds a lot of the residual oil that was out there that had not been skimmed ... has moved northerly toward Mississippi Sound, the areas around the Chandelier Islands and Breton Sound in southeastern Louisiana."
But "very, very intensive surveillance" is being done in order to establish exact locations of the oil and also redeploy response equipment, said the admiral.
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