Since Top Hat, the Junk Shot and a plethora of wacky terminology to plug the oil well in the Gulf didn't work, many had forgot the catastrophe was unplugged. But US Secretary of Energy Stephen Chu just made an announcement on the current state of the operations to permanently plug the blown-out well below the Deepwater Horizon site. He said cement -- in addition to mud -- had worked when injected into the blown well, and that "static kill" appeared to be holding.
 
Chu: During the static kill, the damaged well was filled with mud, stabilizing the pressure within the well and relieving a lot of the excess pressure on the damaged blowout preventer and ceiling cap. I am pleased to tell you that it was completed successfully.

This success led to a much more difficult decision: should we follow the mud with cement to further ensure that the well stays killed? This procedure had a higher risk of something going wrong. With cement, a mistake in execution could be permanent. We also had to weigh the dangers of having so many ships conducting operations within 1,500 meters of the wellbore and of the strain already being placed on the blowout preventer. Continued operations were also taking a toll on the ships' crews; the longer they worked, the greater the danger. Still, the risk of something going wrong was very small, and the potential for dramatic progress was very high. Successfully cementing the well would be a major step toward completely killing the well. We decided to proceed with the cement.
 
All signs indicate that the cement is holding.
 
Timely.

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