BP oil spill rate raised yet again, now up to 60,000 barrels per day

A cleanup worker pauses while vacuuming oil from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill along the northern shores of Barataria Bay in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana on Tuesday, June 15, 2010.

AP Photo/Gerald Herbert

The government on Tuesday raised its estimate of oil flowing out of the uncontrolled BP oil well to as much as 60,000 barrels or 2.52 million gallons per day. This comes a day after BP announced a new containment plan, in which they estimate a capture capability of up to 80,000 barrels a day by mid-July, signaling the possibility that the rate may be raised yet again further down the road.

Oil has been gushing out of the well since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion, sinking, and subsequent oil spill which killed 11 workers and has severely crippled tens of thousands of square miles of the Gulf of Mexico’s and its surrounding coastline’s ecosystem and economy.

The new estimate of 35,000 to 60,000 barrels (1.47 million to 2.52 million gallons) per day is significantly higher than the previous government estimate from last week of 20,000 to 50,000 barrels per day. If this estimate is correct, anywhere from 83 million gallons to 143 million gallons has thus far contaminated the Gulf of Mexico.

According to CNN, the change was announced by the Deepwater Horizon Incident Joint Information Center and the decision was made by Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, and Chair of the National Incident Command's Flow Rate Technical Group Marcia McNutt, “based on updated information and scientific assessments.” The Center further added, “The improved estimate is based on more and better data that is now available and that helps increase the scientific confidence in the accuracy of the estimate.”

A statement released by Secretary Chu remarked, "This estimate brings together several scientific methodologies and the latest information from the sea floor, and represents a significant step forward in our effort to put a number on the oil that is escaping from BP's well.”  However, he also said that the upper number “is less certain.”

The Associated Press reported that the new numbers were based upon video analysis, pressure meters, sonar, and measurements of oil from the containment ship. According to BP it has been siphoning about 16,000 barrels of oil a day from the well, although earlier on Tuesday the company had to temporarily suspend operations due to a fire on the derrick, possibly caused by a lightning strike.

This new figure from the government is in line with an analysis made by an independent source in mid-May which estimated the rate of flow of oil and methane from the well to be at 95,000 barrels or almost 4 million gallons per day plus or minus 20%.

There is still concern that the oil will eventually enter the Gulf Stream of the Atlantic Ocean, and thereby contaminate waters and beaches up to at least Cape Hatteras, North Carolina before going out into the mid-Atlantic Ocean. In addition, scientists have also discovered that there are indeed vast underwater plumes of oil-contaminated water within the Gulf of Mexico, a fact that BP has continued to deny.