BP (NYSE:BP) Confirms Suspicions They May Drill in Same Oil Well Again

With BP (NYSE:BP) backing off its original strategy of performing a bottom kill on the Macondo oil well, it has raised questions as to whether or not they're thinking of making money off the well again, and that has been confirmed as a very strong likelihood by COO Doug Suttles.

Suttles said at a press briefing, "There's lots of oil and gas here. We're going to have to think about what to do with that at some point."

The recent success of the "top kill" offered the option to BP, and it looks like it is definitely part of their goals going forward.

There is approximately 45,000 barrels of oil still in the well, estimated to be valued at just under $4 billion, depending on the price of oil per barrel at the time it's being calculated.

Government point man Thad Allen said this about it, "I would assume that's a policy issue related to the management of the lease. Frankly, it hasn't been raised to my level at this point. I'm not sure I can comment on it."

While it may be true of Allen, it can almost be counted on that the U.S. government isn't surprised at the comments of Suttles, and have more than likely been talking privately with the company about it.

The Interior Department does refute that idea, with spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff saying, "The well is almost dead. Under no circumstances are we going to allow them to reopen the well to extract oil and gas."

That remains to be seen. But the operative word here is "them," as far as Barkoff's comments. It could easily be interpreted that another company besides BP could come in and extract the oil, if BP sold the asset to them.

Either way, this part of the story isn't over, and the relief wells could be used to plug the well, but also could be used to access the oil as well.

It does confirm what we've been talking about the last couple of days at Commodity Surge that it looks like this is what BP has been planning, and now we know it is.