Should BP uncap the oil well?

BP's new containment cap is still keeping oil from flowing from the company's blown-out Macondo well, but the oil giant and U.S. government are offering mixed messages on whether this fix is sustainable. BP officials said Sunday that they plan on leaving the cap in place until they can seal the well at its base, probably in August. But U.S. officials, warning of a possible methane "seep" from the sea floor and "undetermined anomalies at the well head," suggest that the valves might have to be reopened to avoid making the leak worse. Why aren't they on the same page? (Watch an AP report about the disagreement)

BP doesn't want to lose the magic: The government's "worrying" warning of a possible seep is a good reminder that BP doesn't always have our best interests in mind, says Bryan Walsh in Time. After all, its stock jumped 4 percent Friday on the news that it had stopped the oil gusher, and "it's not hard to see why they might want to push the limit on containment and keep that well shut."

"Oil spill: Is the well damaged?"

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

The U.S. might be overreacting: It's true that methane could be seeping out from a damaged well, says Louisiana State University petroleum engineer Darryl Bourgoyne, to Bloomberg. Or "it could be biogenic gas, gas created by bacteria," which bubbles up naturally from the seabed. Opening the cap would mean they're being "very, very cautious."

"U.S. demands more test data... after seep found in seabed"

There are financial interests on both sides: BP has another financial motivation, too, says Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), via CNN. If it siphons all the oil to the surface, like this new cap allows and the U.S. wants, we'll know how much oil has been gushing out. But "if the well remains fully shut in until the relief well is completed, we may never have a fully accurate determination," and BP "might evade billions of dollars of fines."

"Government says leak detected 'a distance from' oil well"

We need a neutral ref: So this disagreement "seems to cry out, yet again, for an independent set of eyes on the scene," says Andrew Revkin in The New York Times. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen is nominally in charge of whether to open the valves, but he relies on BP's undersea robots for most of his information. With so much as stake, we have "urgent reason to have more capacity to scour the seabed."

"BP pressed to assess 'seep' near its well"