lowering the rick as much as we can, and getting the well killed with these relief wells as quickly as we can. just to clarify, are you saying if we were getting some flow measurements now, we could actually retro calculate with some of that what the flow has been in the past. absolutely. and the flow in the past is the one that s the most expensive cal congratulations for bp long term. that s exactly right. they have pressure readings from this wellhead from the very beginning that they have not disclosed to us, except for a few spot readings here and there. now we have this pressure build-up curve. if we were flowing oil into the gulf, we could pretty much calculate how much oil and gas they flowed since april 20th. so let s look at where we are now. 6,800 pounds per square inch pressure, it is rising, that s a good sign. everyone seems to agree. where do you think we are now? what are the possibilities in front of us? and are there still some doomsday scenarios in what you
reporter: the delays we have is the cryptic message we got last night from the federal government and also bp about the seepage. very, very cryptic. there s a lot we don t know about it. admiral thad allen mentioned it is some distance from the well head. we don t know exactly how far that distance is at that is it 20 feet or a mile? we don t know who discovered it, where precisely the seepage is, or what it is, oil or methane. the alarm is any sign of seepage coming up anywhere in that area combined with the pressure readings inside the well could indicate a rupture below the sea floor. that could compound the problems we have had. the latest reading on the pressure as of yesterday morning was 6778, which has gone up an average of 1 to 2 psi an hour. to have that number go up is
political plant but did a new campaign speech help democrat alvin greene gain new supporters in his bid to become south carolina s next u.s. senator? i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. let s get back to our top story this hour. another 24 hours of testing now under way on the new well cap in the gulf of mexico. officials are keeping close watch on pressure readings and possible leaks but so far the incident commander thad allen says no significant problems have been detected. it s been four days since the cap shut in the well and stopped the oil that had been gushing since april. still, protesters are planning to gather right here in washington tomorrow exactly three months after the rig explosion that unleashed this disaster. mary snow has been monitoring a hearing today on the cause of the explosion. mary, i take there were some fireworks. there were, wolf. these are hearingsconducted by
apparently no new oil gushing into the gulf of mexico and the pressure readings under the new tight fitting cap steadily rising. they have not seen or detected any new oil over this integrity test via a small fleet of remotely operated vehicles and multiple seismic and sonar readings conducted from the surface. the data indicates the well s integrity appears to be sound. instead of leaving it corked and waiting for the bottom kill to happen with the relief well, the plan remains to open the riser to kill and choke lines for the large collection ships on the surface. as this continues the relief well should intercept with a leaking well before the end of this month, the ultimate fix. it may take seven days or a week. they want to go real slow to make sure that something does not go wrong. once they get the two wells to intercept bp can start pumping down the heavy drilling mud and cement this gusher shut
concern leaving the white house and b p at ads. bp wants to keep the cap closed, the government is in fave of pumping oil into tankers. the major concern now, if they re opening the cap, if they reopen it, it leaves open the possibility of making the oil spill even worse, and then of course harder to fix. phil keating in gulf port, mississippi. we talked about this yesterday. how serious is this seep and the methane that may be coming out of it? reporter error it s critically important and it is at the crux of what this integrity test is all about. down there under the cameras, on the seafloor, you can see the new tight fitting cap is very snug, you don t see the oil pouring out anymore, however, the issue that s puzzling all weekend long is the pressure readings under that cap. the pressure on saturday was 6745 p.s.p.i, today it s 677p.s.i. it s rising but not as fast as scientists expected so,