BP to Test New Cap Tuesday

Don’t breathe a sigh of relief just yet: BP has installed a new cap on the leaking oil well in the Gulf of Mexico that should be able to collect all of the gushing oil, but it won’t actually know until later Tuesday, when it runs a test that will take between six and 48 hours. The new cap will either hold all the leaking oil or allow it to be siphoned to tankers on the ocean’s surface. Once that’s done, we can begin predicting where BP’s next disaster will be: The New York Times says the company has a long history of “boldness and costly blunders.” In 2005 for example, the company’s crown jewel $1 billion rig, Thunder Horse, listed dangerously to one side during Hurricane Dennis, nearly bringing on a Titanic-like disaster. “Despite a catalog of crises and near misses in recent years, BP has been chronically unable or unwilling to learn from its mistakes, an examination of its record shows,” the Times writes.