BP Report Says Gulf Oil Spill Was Only Half As Big As Government Claims
How much oil spilled from of BP ‘s blown out Macondo well in 2010? The government has estimated that the total came to 4.9 million barrels. But a report authored by a British engineer hired by BP has found that the total volume is more like 3.3 million. When taking into account the 800,000 barrels that BP managed to capture just as it gushed out, the government figures 4.1 million barrels actually escaped into the Gulf of Mexico. BP’s hired engineer calculated just 2.46 million barrels.
The figures come from a 209-page report by London petroleum engineer Martin J. Blunt, a professor at Imperial College in London. This is believed to be the first time that BP’s internal flow rate estimates have been made public.
The tally of barrels will be a huge factor in just how many billions of dollars BP ultimately has to fork over to satisfy Clean Water Act penalties. In the worst case scenario, if a U.S. District Court judge finds that BP was grossly negligent in causing the spill and uses the government’s spill figures, BP could be out as much as $17.6 billion. Blount’s figures would reduce that hit almost by half.