BP's New Plan: Static Kill

Once again, BP has a new plan. This one's called a "static kill" and could, the company says, make it possible to permanently seal the Deepwater Horizon well sooner than had been expected. The procedure would pump heavy mud into the capped well, forcing oil and gas back down into the reservoir and speeding up the process of sealing the well, the New York Times reports.

While the static kill sounds a lot like May's failed top kill, it would be more likely to succeed because with the well completely sealed, oil and gas are currently not flowing. The new plan came amid test results that relieved concern about leakage from the well. In a less-than-reassuringly worded expression of optimism, BP Vice President Kent Wells said, "With this extensive monitoring we're having, we're in a good position to not have a catastrophic event."
(More British Petroleum stories.)