Interesting reading over at ZeroHedge, where there are suggestions from various sources that BP may not be telling the whole truth about their problems in containing the oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico.

It would appear that the attempt at blocking the well using heavy mud, the so called top kill method, failed because the well casing is actually damaged at some point down the hole below the sea floor. If the casing is indeed broken then oil will be leaking out into and eroding the surrounding rock which could result in an oil leak of monumental proportions.

On May 31st, the Washington Post noted:

Sources at two companies involved with the well said that BP also discovered new damage inside the well below the seafloor and that, as a result, some of the drilling mud that was successfully forced into the well was going off to the side into rock formations.

“We discovered things that were broken in the sub-surface,” said a BP official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. He said that mud was making it “out to the side, into the formation.”

On June 2nd, Bloomberg pointed out:

Plugging the well is another challenge even after BP successfully intersects it, Robert Bea, a University of California Berkeley engineering professor, said. BP has said it believes the well bore to be damaged, which could hamper efforts to fill it with mud and set a concrete plug, Bea said.

So, they may have a cap in place doing some syphoning of leaking oil but it would appear that the oil is making it’s own way out all over the seabed :

On June 7th, Senator Bill Nelson told MSNBC that he’s investigating reports of oil seeping up from additional leak points on the seafloor:

Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL): Andrea we’re looking into something new right now, that there’s reports of oil that’s seeping up from the seabed… which would indicate, if that’s true, that the well casing itself is actually pierced… underneath the seabed. So, you know, the problems could be just enormous with what we’re facing.

Andrea Mitchell, MSNBC: Now let me understand better what you’re saying. If that is true that it is coming up form that seabed, even the relief well won’t be the final solution to cap this thing. That means that we’ve got oil gushing up at disparate places along the ocean floor.

Sen. Nelson: That is possible, unless you get the plug down low enough, below where the pipe would be breached.

All of which will likely lead to even more pollution and closed fishing grounds :

Meanwhile, NOAA extended the northern boundary of the closed fishing area in the Gulf of Mexico, taking the area of federal waters out of bounds to 61,854 square miles, about 26% of federal waters in the Gulf.

The banned area now extends up to the Mississippi federal-state water line and to portions of the Alabama federal-state water line.

If these reports are true then it is quite possible that this disaster will be beyond the resources of even a global giant like BP.

Just how long the US will allow it to continue isn’t clear but I would not be surprised at all to see them either push BP aside or seize it’s assets to pay for the oily mess they made.