Importantly, this mud also acts as a kind of plug in the hole, preventing any oil and gas from blasting up out of the hole.

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Entrepreneurs and con men sunk dozens of wells around Fort McMurray in the second half of the nineteenth century. (One enterprising German immigrant who claimed to have struck oil apparently poured the stuff down the hole himself.) Eventually, it became clear that there was no oil, and attention turned to mining the bitumen.

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If the oil were to pop a new hole in the seafloor, we would see pressure plunge.

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The pressure in the capped-off well could blow a new hole in it, letting oil and gas leak out through the seabed.

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Even by announcing nothing at Jackson Hole, the dollar plummeted and oil caromed higher.

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While other attempts are planned to block the hole, it is probable that oil will continue to pour from it for another couple of months, until relief wells are drilled to intersect and reduce the pressure in the currently flowing well and cut-off the leakage of perhaps 50 million barrels of oil contained there by the injection of concrete deep into the seabed.

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Right now, it is the black black oil, which is filling Brown's black hole.

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Right now, the company says, it has removed that mud from the hole, but it believes that barite from the oil-based mud has blocked the flow.

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One of the first to speak among earlier delegations was Leo Koot, managing director of oil firm TAQA Bratani, who said Union Terrace Gardens was a "dark hole".

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