so they like the way things are moving at this point. but as you heard the president mention, so far no decisions made as to exactly what will happen after this integrity test is over. but the longer it goes, the better news that is. it is clear that that gives the scientists, the experts many more options in their decision making as they move forward. they are doing a series of seismic testing, sonar testing to kind of gauge the integrity of all that ground around where that blowout preventer is. they say they want to make sure that pressure does not damage that. that is the critical part so that they hope that in the coming days everything will continue as it is now an give them the ability to either use this containment cap to seal off the well for good, in which case we probably wouldn t see oil come back out, or use the riser pipes and the riser connections to bring the oil that would be released again back up to the surface in the vessels that would hold them, about 80,000 gallon
ed, if it does not work, clearly, they will have to wait for the two relief wells are completed either in late july or early to mid-august at some point to kill that well once and for all, because that is really the last ditch operation they have. if this doesn t work right now, ed, they will have to rely on the completion of those two relief wells? reporter: well, absolutely. that has n t changed. even if you have it contained, you have to kill off the well for good, so that work would continue. but they also have a second scenario here as they wait to see if this containment cap by itself can work, and as chad mentioned if that pressure starts to drop, they will open up all of the valves again, and remember, they have to they say they have enough vessels now in the region to collect am as much as 80,000 barrels a day, so they can hook up the riser pipes back up to the valves and start to bring the oil back to the surface, and that is why they have liked this idea so much. they fe
diagram? right now if a hurricane or other storm threatens they have to allow about five days to disconnect everything. right now these are the only two riser pipes going up to containment ships. they have to disconnect these and they need five days to do it. now, if they recon figure they could install a quick disconnect system which would look a little bit like this free standing riser here. disconnect it from a ship that could be reconnected later. also if they add a new cap and more hookups they might be able to double the amount of oil that they re capturing right now. the downside? to recon figure it all they would have to disconnect everything and not capture any oil during that time. currently, they re catching about 25,000 barrels of oil a day. if they have to remove this cap temporarily estimates say as much as 60,000 barrels a day would be escaping into the sea. this could be gushing for quite sometime. so, brian, how are they doing with the solution that clearly everybody
the next 48 hours, the better sign that is, larry. larry: is this it? is this the final solution? does it appear to be that way? this isn t going to be the final solution. because this does not kill off the flow of oil. all of this does is essentially control it. and if the cap by itself doesn t work they hope they will be able to use the riser pipes coming out of the machinery start collecting it at a rate of 80,000 barrels a day. what will kill this off for good is that relief well, right now the work is temporarily stopped while they re doing this test. but they re saying they still are on track for mid august. so essentially to kill off the well. that s why this is so significant. if this works it will save a month s worth of oil from liking into the gulf waters. larry: the mood there must be pretty good, huh? i m sorry? larry: the mood must be pretty good? well you know, it s interesting, what we have heard repeatedly over the last, for
coming from the blow jute preventer and other machinery, that is also a good sign that we re, i think, what, 14, 15, 16 hours into this integrity test already. the longer it goes, the better sign that is. to get back to your question about what happens next, a lot of this is still very much in the air. we kind of knew of some basic ideas of possibilities going into this, after having spoken with that had allen and other bp officials, an the scenario that appears to be the most lightly at this point. this is obviously with the caveat that things can quickly change here and change footing, but that had allen mentioned it a couple times yesterday, but the idea of reopening the four valves on the blowout preventer and the containment cap and bringing in the riser pipes, and basically suctioning and funneling off the oil, kind of releasing it back out and containing that oil in vessels on the surface of the gulf of