Below is a transcript from Saturday’s teleconference press briefing by Admiral Thad Allen, National Incident Commander for the Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill.

A downloadable audio file of the conference is available here.

September 4, 2010

2:00 p.m. CDT 

*The pressure limit of the replacement Blow Out Preventer (BOP) is 15,000 psi.

Thad Allen:  Thank you, Jeff, and good afternoon.  Well I'm pleased to announce as you know that we successfully changed out the Blow Out Preventers on the Macondo Well.

I'm about to give a status on each of the individual segments associated with and I'd be glad to take any questions you have for me after that.  As you know we successfully removed the capping stack with the Discoverer Enterprise followed by the removal of the Blow Out Preventer and the spooling tool from the Macondo well yesterday.

Over the last 24 plus hours, as you know, the Blow Out Preventer has been slowly brought to the surface.  To give you an idea of how that is working for those of you that have not been out to Q4000 or been able to see how this works.

The latching device that was used to recover the Blow Out Preventer is actually a drill string, and as the Blow Out Preventer is brought to the surface they have to disconnect the pieces of the drill string the pipe and store it as they bring it up. 

So, on the Q4000, what happens on deck up there is rather complicated.  They’re raising the pipe up disconnecting it and storing the pipe as they slowly bring the Blow Out Preventer to the surface.

Currently, the Blow Out Preventer is about 500 feet below the surface.  They are flushing out the Blow Out Preventer right now to deal with any potential hydrates that might still be in Blow Out Preventer and also they are arranging to take the Blow Out Preventer on deck. 

As you can imagine with the drill pipe and everything else, it is quite a complicated procedure for actually bringing the Blow Out Preventer up and staging it.

When they are ready to bring the Blow Out Preventer into the Q4000 it will be raised by a very high derrick on deck.  Once it is secured on deck they will accentually at that point lift the Lower Marine Riser Package off with a crane on the Q4000 and hold it in the air while the Blow Out Preventer is moved laterally off to the side and secured.  Once that is done the Lower Marine Riser Package will then be deployed and secured on deck.

Once secured on deck, the Blow Out Preventer Lower Marine Riser Package will then be transported by the Q4000 closer to shore where both Lower Marine Riser Package and Blow Out Preventer will be transferred to other vessels for transfer to the area where the Blow Out Preventer will be taken into custody and at that point will be part of the evidence material that’s been required by the joint investigative team, and this whole thing has been done under the supervision of the Department of Justice. 

There are law enforcement personnel onboard the vessel supervising each step and has it documented as well as documented with ROV coverage.  At the well itself we have continued to monitor the well and there have been no anomalies associated with the well.

We have continued to conduct surveillance with ROVs and sensors that are actually on the well head.  Development Driller II has placed a new Blow Out Preventer on the well head.  They are flushing fluids through the Blow Out Preventer and they are replacing the riser pipe.  When they deployed the new Blow Out Preventer on the well, they had what's called a perforated riser pipe. 

That was to allow the escape of fluids should that be needed if there was a problem with pressure.  It was not needed.  So that is removed.  And they will cycle a new riser pipe down which will create the complete functionality of the riser pipe connect to the BOP to this well as if it were a functioning well itself with the BOP on top.

At that point, in fact, where we are at now with the new BOP on the well is we basically have secured this well as we would any well that was under production and then being closed out with a kill. 

There is cement in the well casing itself.  There's a Blow Out Preventer that has been pressure tested on top.  And we have essentially eliminated the threat of discharge from the well at this point. 

There's a series of events that will be taking place throughout the next several days that actually create a transition from controlling the source of the spill to what they call plugging an abandonment which is a regulatory term used by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) in supervising how a well is put into a reserve status.

So what you're going to see in the briefings and information provider over the next several days will constitute actions.  We're taking not only the control of the source, but to also take the final steps to plug and abandon.  At that point it will shift to the oversight of the Department of Interior and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. 

And when there is no further threat of discharge in the well and it has been killed it will no longer be under the purview of my command as a National Incident Commander.  It will shift to the Department of Energy at that point. 

So we're in the process of moving through that right now.  But I'm very pleased to announce that with the new Blow Out Preventer on this well, the cement that was previously put in through the static kill, that this well does not constitute a threat to the Gulf of Mexico at this point but we need to finish the work related to the relief well and the plug and abandonment which will need to move forward.

The Discover Enterprise had removed a capping stack and was standing by should that capping stack be needed again.  That is not needed now, so later on today the capping stack will be recovered to the surface on the Discover Enterprise and move forward, and with that I'll be glad to take any questions you have for me. 

Operator:  Your first question comes from the line of Kristen Hays with Reuters. 

Kristen Hays:  Yes, hi Admiral.  I've got two questions.  When do you think drilling will resume on the relief well and do you have any concerns about the thunderstorms kicking up in the far southwest part of the Gulf?

Thad Allen:  Well we're continuing to watch those thunderstorms.  And I might add I just got a note that the capping stack is safely secured above on the Discoverer Enterprise.  In response to your question, we need to reinstall the riser pipe to the Blow Out Preventer and at that point there are some diagnostics that will be attempted to further understand the condition of the well.

At that point BP will present a way forward.  It will be renewed by the science team in conjunction with the Bureau of Ocean and Energy Management.  And we will make a decision on the next couple of steps. 

We will be in a position as we go into the next week to begin the relief well.  But we will make sure that any steps that are necessary before that will be taken and coordinated with BOEM.  So, we're in a period here where we're kind of moving with two coordinating structures and making sure we both understand what's going on moving forward.

But we should be ready to move forward with the relief well again sometime this next week.  What I would hope once we get the BOP on deck finish the riser installation.  We will give you a firm timeline.  But I'd like to hold off right now until we get all that information completed. 

Kristen Hays:  OK, thank you sir.

Operator:  Your next question comes from the line of Mario Garcia with NBC News.

Mario Garcia:  Hi, Admiral Allen thanks for taking the call and thanks for the other day I just wanted to double check.  This – the well is not completly killed but it’s exponentially safer now because the BOP – the new BOP being on there.  And what’s the PSI that the BOP – the new BOP can withstand moving forward throughout the other processes that will involve high pressures?

Thad Allen:  Well in response to your first question yes, the well has been effectively secured regarding any potential source of pollution in the Gulf.  That’s the reason for my statement we’re actually while we’re moving to kill the well and finish the cementing job from the bottom we’ve effectively constructively moved a good deal into the process that would be used to plug and abandon the drill. 

So an overlap bewtween what I would call source control or source containment and the final plugging and abandonment of the well and some of the activities that are involved in the end of source containment in the beginning of plugging and abandonment are the same. 

That’s the reason I’m being careful with the terms and how this moves forward here.  We have substantially basically eliminated any threat of discharge in the well.  But either to complete the well kill itself and to move to plug and abandonment both of those require that we finish really well and conduct the intercept.  Was that responsive?

Mario Garcia:  Yes sir, and then the PSI and the BOP can withstand.

Thad Allen:  Subject to me coming back and correcting it, I believe at 16,000* but I’m going to give you that as a tentative answer and let me check it.

Mario Garcia:  OK, thank you sir.

Operator:  Your next question comes from the line of Gary Taylor with Platt.

Gary Taylor:  Thank you and congratulations Admiral.  What about the pipes the broken pipes can you elaborate a little bit on what you found and what you had to do to deal with those?

Thad Allen:  Well frankly, that’s been somewhat quizzical, as you know we saw pipes extending from the stub of the riser – at riser pipe after we cut it.  We had expected to encounter a pipe that was suspended in the centerline and in each step of the way when we got further in either through the fishing experiment route and the cap and stack we found that there were pieces of pipe that are very fragile. 

But we could not tell what was going on below the annular and Blow Out Preventer and the Legacy Deep Water Horizon Blow Out Preventer.  When the Blow Out Preventer was lifted off the well head there was no sign of pipe.  That would tell us that any pipe that remains in that well is broken or collapsed further down into the well.

And not constitute a problem we thought we might have if it had been suspended from the Blow Out Preventer and somehow had adhered with the pipe casing with the cementing job that went on.

I’m not sure we’re going to know until we get the Blow Out Preventer out are really able to look inside it and find the pieces of pipe and analyze that.  And as I said earlier on there are some diagnostics and some checks going on right now if we can determine anything more about this well before we go to the final stages of the well kill.

And I think that will be of extreme interest to everybody the condition of the pipe.  But as appears right now for whatever reasons  it could just be the deterioration of the pipe or the amount of forces that it was subjected to with the dynamic kill, the static kill, and the various physical conditions that the BOP has been subjected to.  It appears that the pipe was not a problem we anticipated that it might be and we planned for that but fortunately, it was not.

Gary Taylor:  Thank you.

Operator:  There are no further questions at this time.

Thad Allen:  Thank you very much.

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