Somebody’s not telling the truth.
BP said it captured about 21,000 barrels of crude on Saturday from the gushing Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico. The company is drilling a relief well elsewhere on the sea floor that will, when complete, apparently draw all the pressure off the busted well that’s causing the catastrophe; but right now, it’s furiously boosting its capturing efforts. It expects to be able to suck up about 50,000 barrels by the end of June, and as much as 80,000 barrels by July.
Ah, then why is the press still reporting that the well is spewing 35,000-60,000 barrels a day?
It’s a very simple matter of math and logic. Notice BP didn’t say, 80,000 barrels and then we’ll have this thing under control. BP didn’t say, listen, we bring in this extra equipment, we can capture all of it. No. BP expects as much as 80,000 barrels a day. Which means that, unless they plan on pumping crude back into the well, they know, now, there’s more than that 35,00 barrels a day coming out of that well, or even 60,000.
I’ve linked a few times to this McClatchy story that cites Ira Leifer, a member of the government’s Flow Rate Technical Team, who said there’s no reason not to think that the well is gushing at a rate that was BP’s “worst-case scenario” — 100,000 barrels a day. More and more, it looks like Leifer is right.
