Gulf Oil Spill Easily Passes Exxon Valdez
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The Gulf oil spill has surpassed the Exxon Valdez as the worst such incident in U.S. history, according to the Coast Guard who released new estimations on Thursday, while BP PLC (NYSE: BP) said that its latest attempt to stop it seemed to be working.
Since the Transocean Ltd. (NYSE: RIG) Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20, a team of scientists has been trying to gather a clear estimation on just how severe the spill actually is, and now the estimations are for at least twice and as much as five times as much as previously thought.
The most conservative estimates still have the spill currently at 19 million gallons, well ahead of the 1 million gallons spilt during the Exxon Valdez disaster. Some of the estimates have the Gulf spill at 39 million gallons.
U.S. Geological Survey Director Marcia McNutt announced Thursday that the teams have calculated that there has been between 504,000 and 1 million gallons pumping into the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana for more than a month.
Original estimates from the Coast Guard and BP had much more modest estimates shortly after the explosion of 210,000 gallons per day, but scientists have been denying those estimates for weeks based on the underwater video of the well.
Efforts to stop the flow of oil have not been been overly successful, including an attempt to siphon the well with a mile long tube that was inserted and has sucked up 924,000 gallons, but this was stopped to implement the top-kill procedure which got underway on Wednesday.
The top-kill plan called for pumping heavy drilling fluid into the well to cut off the flow altogether, which if successful would allow BP to seal the well with cement. This method has been used successfully in the past but has never been implemented 5,000 feet underwater.
BP has given the top-kill plan a 60 percent to 70 percent chance of working.
Since the Transocean Ltd. (NYSE: RIG) Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20, a team of scientists has been trying to gather a clear estimation on just how severe the spill actually is, and now the estimations are for at least twice and as much as five times as much as previously thought.
The most conservative estimates still have the spill currently at 19 million gallons, well ahead of the 1 million gallons spilt during the Exxon Valdez disaster. Some of the estimates have the Gulf spill at 39 million gallons.
U.S. Geological Survey Director Marcia McNutt announced Thursday that the teams have calculated that there has been between 504,000 and 1 million gallons pumping into the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana for more than a month.
Original estimates from the Coast Guard and BP had much more modest estimates shortly after the explosion of 210,000 gallons per day, but scientists have been denying those estimates for weeks based on the underwater video of the well.
Efforts to stop the flow of oil have not been been overly successful, including an attempt to siphon the well with a mile long tube that was inserted and has sucked up 924,000 gallons, but this was stopped to implement the top-kill procedure which got underway on Wednesday.
The top-kill plan called for pumping heavy drilling fluid into the well to cut off the flow altogether, which if successful would allow BP to seal the well with cement. This method has been used successfully in the past but has never been implemented 5,000 feet underwater.
BP has given the top-kill plan a 60 percent to 70 percent chance of working.
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