Government Ups Estimate Of Leak To As High As 40,000 Barrels A Day

According to the federal government’s Deepwater Horizon Response team, scientists now put the rate of the leak as high as 40,000 barrels a day.  BP plc (NYSE: BP) recently estimated it was capturing 15,000 barrels.

The new estimates indicate that the amount of crude flowing into the Gulf is still huge and that the spill is likely to grow substantially before relief wells can be drilled. This will not happen until August. “Under the direction of National Incident Commander Admiral Thad Allen, the Flow Rate Technical Group (FRTG), which is led by United States Geological Survey Director Dr. Marcia McNutt, and a scientific team led by Energy Secretary Steven Chu are analyzing new data and bringing together several scientific methodologies to develop an updated estimate of how much oil is flowing from BP’s leaking oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. “

And..

“Based on additional video that BP was directed to provide, members of the Plume Modeling Team have now calculated updated lower and upper bound range estimates for a period of time before the Riser Insertion Tube Tool was inserted and before the riser was cut.  Most of the experts have concluded that, given the limited data available and the small amount of time to process that data, the best estimate for the average flow rate for the leakage prior to the insertion of the RITT is between 25,000 to 30,000 barrels per day, but could be as low as 20,000 barrels per day or as high as 40,000 barrels per day. “

If BP cannot drill a relief well successfully, a number of experts believe that the spill will spread to the Florida Keys and then up the East Coast into the mid-Atlantic.

Douglas A. McIntyre