Top Kill Slays The Dragon?

Early this morning the LA Times is reporting that BP's "top kill" procedure has in fact actually worked.

Engineers have succeeded in stopping the flow of oil and gas into the Gulf of Mexico from a gushing BP well, the federal government's top oil spill commander, U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, said Thursday morning.

The "top kill" effort, launched Wednesday afternoon by industry and government engineers, has pumped enough drilling fluid to block all oil and gas from the well, Allen said. The pressure from the well is very low, but persists, he said.

Once engineers have reduced the well pressure to zero, they will begin to pump cement into the hole to entomb the well. To help that effort, he said, engineers are also pumping some debris into the blowout preventer at the top of the well.

No confirmation yet, but we'll see if BP finally got this damn thing fixed or not soon, I would think.  I'll reserve EPIC WIN status until then.

[UPDATE] Everyone's still hedging their bets on if it actually worked or not, but the official estimates are now in the 15-30k barrels a day range.  I think those are still several times too low.  Obama's presser:



And now the really, really bad news, there's far more oil under the surface, possible millions of barrels worth.

David Hollander, associate professor of chemical oceanography at the school, says the thick plume was detected just beneath the surface down to about 3,300 feet. He says it’s more than 6 miles wide. Scientists say they are worried the undersea plumes may be from chemical dispersants used to break up the oil a mile under the surface.

Not good.