Not long after news reports floated the possibility that oil could continue spilling even after the relief wells are completed, The Wall Street Journal reports that BP is privately aiming to “fix” the leak by July 27, the day it speaks to investors about its second-quarter earnings. It’ll be the one smidgen of good news amid a much larger amount of bad news. Hooray! But wait a second — hasn’t BP consistently overestimated its own abilities? Like when it said it could skim and burn 491,721 barrels of oil a day, and ended up actually skimming only 305,238 barrels over the course of the entire cleanup effort?
“In a perfect world with no interruptions, it’s possible to be ready to stop the well between July 20 and July 27,” said the head of BP’s Gulf Coast restoration unit, managing director Bob Dudley, in an interview. He added that this “perfect case” is threatened by the hurricane season and is “unlikely.”
Well, at least he’s honest. It probably won’t be fixed by July 27. But maybe next time he could just say it definitely won’t be, so that if it is, we can be pleasantly surprised by BP just one time.
BP Sets New Spill Target [WSJ]
