The retired chairman of an energy investment banking firm told National Geographic in little-noticed comments Thursday that efforts to stop the oil leak under the Gulf of Mexico could prove fruitless and than oil could gush into the ocean for years.
Matthew Simmons, retired chair of the energy-industry investment bank Simmons & Company, said that BP and the US military's engineers are more or less clueless about cutting off the flow.
"We don't have any idea how to stop this," Simmons said. The former banker mocked a proposal to try and plug the leak with trash, saying it was a "joke."
Simmons noted that the pressure at 5,000 feet undersea -- where the well site is located -- is so high, that containment efforts are likely often to fail. At 5,000 feet underwater, blocking elements have to be able to hold even with pressures off 40,000 pounds per square inch.
Incoming American Association of Petroleum Geologists chief David Resink says the oil reservoir that is feeding the spill is colossal.
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