Hey, free rust-proofing!

BP has succeeded in putting on a cap device that has caught about 6,000 barrels in the past 24 hours. Unfortunately, about 19,000 barrels a day are leaking into the ocean. Its a case of too little too late. I've read that the water near the coast looks red from all the oil. Such a tragedy! :(

Possible path of oil:

But BP says nobody needs to know how many barrels are leaking ... and then said it was only 5,000 barrels per day. Why do these numbers not work? Is somebody smarter than a 2nd Grader?

Oh c'mon tw - there are plenty of people smarter than a 2nd grader.
It seems that none of them are currently employed at BP.

Edited for TW, I'm sure that's what he meant classic. Or at least thats what I've decided he meant. :p:

Perhaps you are right - after rereading it the writing style still leaves it ambiguous. <shrug>

I saw some tv news over the weekend. They were talking about gallons of oil, my bad.

The whole situation will be a nail in the Coffin of LA.

Here in France, the news channel speak of 'barrels' of oil, yet when I read news in english the amount of oil is sometimes expressed in gallons.

I know the difference between the two: 55 gallons to 1 barrel.

Can someone give me hard numbers ?

As in, how much oil? BP has been offering numbers around 5,000 barrels per day, other estimates range from 20,000 to 70,000 barrels per day.

In metric terms, this is 1.7 gigashitloads per day.

According to Wikipedia, a barrel of oil is 42 gallons or about 159 liters. Other liquids measured in barrels are 55 gallons, but oil is 42.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrel#For_storage_of_oil

Thanks for the correction. Though I'm familiar with US/UK units from my reading, I don't use them on a regular basis.




I'll say that if BP says 5000 barrels a day, you can probably add between 25% to 75% to that amount.

Therefore, an estimation of 10 000 barrels/day seems reasonable... as long as BP isn't lying through its teeth.

As for paying the cleaning of the coast, there's no third party between BP and the goverment. It's should be easy enough to present them with the bill.

BP now claim to be capturing 10,000 bpd or more, yet they estimate that this is less than half of the leak currently flowing. Do the maths.
In their defence, the cut-and-cap move did initially increase the flow, but only 'marginally' whatever that means.
I would not rule out the possibility that BP is indeed lying through its teeth.

fixed that for ya.