BP Document Shows Leak May Be 14,000 Barrels Daily

[kpete]

Source: Bloomberg

BP Document Shows Leak May Be 14,000 Barrels Daily (Update1)
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By Kim Chipman and Jim Efstathiou Jr.

May 26 (Bloomberg) -- A BP Plc document shows the company’s well in the Gulf of Mexico may be leaking about 14,000 barrels of oil a day, more than publicly estimated, U.S. Representative Edward Markey said today.

The internal BP document from April 27 put a high estimate for the leak at 14,266 barrels a day, Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, said today at a House Natural Resources Committee hearing. At the time, BP was saying publicly that its well was leaking 1,000 barrels a day, Markey said.

The amount of oil being spilled will help determine BP’s liability for the leak, which was triggered by an April 20 explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig leased by BP from Transocean Ltd. BP began its most ambitious attempt to plug the well today by pumping mud-like drilling fluid into it. Markey said he received the BP document yesterday.

“According to this BP document, the company’s low estimate of the leak on April 27 was 1,063 barrels a day,” Markey said. “It’s best guess was 5,758 barrels a day. Its high estimate was 14,266 barrels a day. So when BP was citing the 1,000 barrels a day figure to the America people on April 28, their own internal document from the day before showed that their best guess was a leak of 5,758 barrels a day and their high estimate was over 14,000 barrels a day.”



Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=apl1lUExRO4o

[Junkdrawer]

1. 95,000 bbl / day is more like it. n/t

[micraphone]

2. Too right its low

From the Oil Drum a few minutes ago:

...in the Press Conference Doug Suttles said that they are only injecting mud at the rate of 20 barrels a minute. (7,000 barrels over 6 hours). This is less than half the anticipated flow (50 barrels) and they may have dropped the injection flow rate to keep pressures in the BOP at an acceptable level. That does increase the time it will take to fill the well significantly (by several hours, depending on the leak rate). Though it also shows that those estimates that the well was leaking at 100,000 barrels a day were fantasy.

It would take 87.5% of the mud injected being lost to leaks, for it to take 22 hours to fill the well, and that would indicate that the leakage rate was 25,000 bd.

Some way smart professional oil men who have been spot on about this most of the time - even though BP is trying to control the coverage...

[gristy]

3. But it still has to be called a leak, apparently.

I just don't understand that. From Markey, no less.

[Raster]

4. It's called a "lead" or a "spill" to marginalize what it truly is:

an ecological disaster of unprecedented proportions. If this is not stopped, much of the Earth's marine environment WILL FUCKING DIE. And if much of the Earth's marine environment dies...well, you do the math.

So I ask you now, President Obama: Who attended the super-state-secret Cheney* energy meetings? What was their agenda? What was discussed?

[kestrel91316]

5. IIRC, 14,000 barrels = 770,000 gallons (@55 gal/bbl). Just for perspective.

770,000 gallons X 30 days = 23,100,000 gallons per month