Wednesday, May 19, 2010
BP told feds it could handle leak 60 times greater than the one it got
by Larry Geller
The Alabama Press-Register has posted documents to its website (follow the link below) showing that BP told the federal government it could handle an oil spill 60 times larger than the present gusher in the Gulf of Mexico.
In its 2009 exploration plan for the Deepwater Horizon well, BP PLC states that the company could handle a spill involving as much as 12.6 million gallons of oil per day, a number 60 times higher than its current estimate of the ongoing Gulf disaster.
In associated documents filed with the U.S. Minerals Management Service, the company says that it would be able to skim 17.6 million gallons of oil a day from the Gulf in the event of a spill.
As of Tuesday, BP reported recovering 6 million gallons of oily water since the ongoing spill began four weeks ago. BP spokesman Tom Mueller said that only about 10 percent of the skimmed liquid was oil, which would amount to about 600,000 gallons of oil collected thus far. [Alabama Press-Register, BP told feds it could handle oil spill 60 times larger than Deepwater Horizon, 5/19/2010]
Follow the link for the complete story, excerpts from the Initial Exploration Plan for the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, and other resources.
Post a Comment
Requiring those Captcha codes at least temporarily, in the hopes that it quells the flood of comment spam I've been receiving.