BP oil well gushed 4.9 million barrels: US

[ProSense]

Source: AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US government on Monday said BP's ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico gushed an estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil, making it the largest accidental oil spill of all time.

"Overall, the scientific teams estimate that approximately 4.9 million barrels of oil have been released from the well," the joint response command that includes BP and the US government said in a statement describing the new estimate.

"Not all of this oil and gas flowed into the ocean; containment activities conducted by BP under US direction captured approximately 800,000 barrels of oil prior to the capping of the well," they said.

The 4.9 million barrels is at the upper end of an earlier official estimate, which said that between 3.0 million and 5.3 million barrels had spewed from the well between April 20, when the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, and July 15, when a cap placed over the wellhead was finally sealed.


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100802/pl_afp/usoilenvironmentpollutionbpestimate_20100802232128

[aquart]

1. So how much does BP owe on that amount?

[Grown2Hate]

2. So about 206 million gallons? Why does that sound EXTRAORDINARILY low? Something's OFF... NT

[Grown2Hate]

3. Well, that's almost 82,000 barrels a day (estimating the leak for about 60 days), so maybe it's

close. ::shrug:: Either way, holy HELL.

[ladywnch]

4. I think it's because they keep bouncing back and forth between

talking in barrels and talking in gallons

[Grown2Hate]

6. And while listening to Mark Thompson (Make it Plain), a caller was referring to how much

sea water (or any water) one gallon of oil could render toxic (which I want to say was about the volume of an Olympic swimming pool), so we were talking QUADRILLIONS of gallons of water contaminated. Numbers we can't even wrap our minds around. Probably what was throwing me as well.

[Posteritatis]

5. Picture a cube 302 feet to a side and fill it with oil

That's 206 million gallons; it's not a small amount.

[Turborama]

7. Thanks for posting the amount in gallons. Not many people know what a barrel contains.

Also, 206 million is over 1/5 of a billion.

[saigon68]

8. K & R

[AngryAmish]

9. Almost 632 acre feet if oil.