BP keeps lowballing Oil spill estimates

[Puppycow]

So, the amount of oil being captured is now up to 15,000 bbl/day and it's still not all of it.

Coast Guard officials said BP was drawing 15,000 barrels a day of oil into a containment ship a mile above the leak, and is expected to increase that capacity to 28,000 barrels a day by next week with the arrival of the first of two vessels steaming for the gulf.
. . .
Though recent government estimates put the leak at 12,000 to 19,000 barrels a day — nearly three times what well operator BP reported in the initial days — it now appears that the flow may have grown larger when a kinked riser pipe was cut to fit the temporary containment cap on June 3.

(actually that's 15 times higher than what we were originally told, and 3 times higher than the revised estimate that it was raised to over BP's objections. Since the amount now being captured is 15,000 bbl/day, we can rule out the lower end of the official estimated range. )

For several days after the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig, the government and BP claimed that the well on the ocean floor was leaking about 1,000 barrels a day.

A small organization called SkyTruth, which uses satellite images to monitor environmental problems, published an estimate on April 27 suggesting that the flow rate had to be at least 5,000 barrels a day, and probably several times that.

The following day, the government — over public objections from BP — raised its estimate to 5,000 barrels a day.

Mean while, the New York Times reports that BP and the government have been trying awfully hard to keep this information out of the public realm.

In the first few weeks after the oil rig explosion, BP kept a tight lid on images of the oil leaking into the gulf. Even when it released the first video of the spewing oil on May 12, it provided only a 30-second clip. The most-detailed images did not become public until two weeks ago when BP gave members of Congress access to internal video feeds from its underwater rovers. Without BP’s permission, some members of Congress displayed the video for news networks like CNN, which carried them live.

Then there are the denials of the existence of plumes of oil underwater, which independent scientists have found.

It's marine scientists from gulf state universities - not the government or BP - who have been flagging giant undersea plumes for weeks. University of Georgia researchers found one three miles wide.

The University of South Florida found an even bigger one.

But BP, responsible for managing the fall-out, appears to be in a perpetual state of denial. They insist all the oil is on top.

"The oil is on the surface," said BP CEO Tony Hayward on May 30.

BP COO Doug Suttles echoed that sentiment to CBS News Early Show anchor Harry Smith Wednesday. Asked directly by Smith if he believed the underwater plumes existed, Suttles said, "Harry, no one has found any large concentrations of oil beneath the surface."

Smith responded, "So scientists are making it up?"

"All we can know for certain is what we measured," said Suttles.

 

[BenBurch]

The fine they will have to pay is PER BARREL spilled.

So of course they are going to lie like a rug.

 

[Puppycow]

The fine they will have to pay is PER BARREL spilled.

So of course they are going to lie like a rug.

If that's true, I hope that somebody independent is double-checking the actual rate of oil captured now at the surface.

 

[BenBurch]

If that's true, I hope that somebody independent is double-checking the actual rate of oil captured now at the surface.

They want it to be uncertain enough that they can argue in court... I think we need to take their CEO into custody as a flight risk.

 

[portlandatheist]

While I absolutely agree they are low balling the estimates and I believe that there is oil under the surface that we aren't seeing, I think that the oil "plumes" may have been overstated. The NOAA samples have found oil in the water but diluted oil so I don't know about huge oil plumes under the surface. All the news articles say "oil plumes confirmed" but the definition of "plume" is a tad shaky.

Lubchenco said the water analysis "indicate there is definitely oil sub surface. It's in very low concentrations" of less than 0.5 parts per million

This from an article that says "Oil Plumes Confirmed"
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100608/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_gulf_oil_spill_plumes
I don't mean to understate this either. What effect will this under water oil have? But its not like a giant glob of solid oil.

 

[Puppycow]

While I absolutely agree they are low balling the estimates and I believe that there is oil under the surface that we aren't seeing, I think that the oil "plumes" may have been overstated. The NOAA samples have found oil in the water but diluted oil so I don't know about huge oil plumes under the surface. All the news articles say "oil plumes confirmed" but the definition of "plume" is a tad shaky.

This from an article that says "Oil Plumes Confirmed"
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100608/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_gulf_oil_spill_plumes
I don't mean to understate this either. What effect will this under water oil have? But its not like a giant glob of solid oil.

That's interesting. I hope that you are correct. The CBS story I linked to talks about the size of these "plumes" but not the concentration. 0.5 ppm strikes me as a very low concentration, if true. The image I had in my head was not of a solid mass of oil, but more like a dirty soup with lots little globs of oil. But I think this needs to be looked at more carefully.

 

[Puppycow]

It still looks like a lot of oil is being leaked:
http://www.wkrg.com/gulf_oil_spill/spill_cam/

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the actual amount is probably higher than the upper end of the latest official estimate (12-19 k)

 

[EHocking]

That's interesting. I hope that you are correct. The CBS story I linked to talks about the size of these "plumes" but not the concentration. 0.5 ppm strikes me as a very low concentration, if true. The image I had in my head was not of a solid mass of oil, but more like a dirty soup with lots little globs of oil. But I think this needs to be looked at more carefully.

I traced back the original statements coming from the research vessel Pelican after watching an MSNBC show that was brought up in the other oil spill thread.

The "plumes" are in fact "clouds" of dispersant treated oil. This is why the concentration of oil is low - it is the point of a dispersant.

As for BP lowballing the spill estimate (i.e. the 5000bpd stated at the start of the incident) - this was not a figure that BP came up with. It was a figure calculated by a third party for the government based on observations of surface sheen right at the start of the incident.

While it is financially convenient for BP to have had such a low estimate publicised initially, to say that they lowballed the figure is not quite accurate (IMO). The Coast Guard announced the 12-19,000bpd figure quite early in their news releases done in conjuction with BP.

Now that they have better containment on the wellhead, that higher figure is being shown to be the more accurate (for values of "accurate").

 

[dahduh]

Has anyone seen a study of the physics of oil bubbling up from depth? Perhaps as droplets of oil rise the volatiles gasify as the pressure drops, breaking them down to a point where they go into suspension. What we are seeing on the surface might then be very much less than what is actually in the water. It's possible that with the sheer depth of this well we are seeing something new.

 

[BenBurch]

Markets quaking in their boots over BP bankruptcy rumors. Seems they cannot even possibly cover the penalties.

 

[funk de fino]

It still looks like a lot of oil is being leaked:
http://www.wkrg.com/gulf_oil_spill/spill_cam/

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the actual amount is probably higher than the upper end of the latest official estimate (12-19 k)

What it looks like and what it is are two different things. Especially now.

 

[BenBurch]

What it looks like and what it is are two different things. Especially now.

That's the trouble, estimating from a camera image. What is needed is a pressure sensor down in the pipe and the total square cm of vent area.

 

[AlBell]

That's the trouble, estimating from a camera image. What is needed is a pressure sensor down in the pipe and the total square cm of vent area.

That, GOR, turbulence, etc.

Question: If you were going to be fined on a per barrel basis what flow estimates would you provide?

Both the 1000 amd 5000 were not from BP.

 

[BenBurch]

That, GOR, turbulence, etc.

Question: If you were going to be fined on a per barrel basis what flow estimates would you provide?

Both the 1000 amd 5000 were not from BP.

Were I in such a situation, I'd do exactly as much as the lawyers said I had to.

Just like BP.

This doesn't mean that it would help the greater good, but a CEO isn't in the position of being a benefactor to humanity, but a steward of the shareholder's capital.

And I would expect there to be a hue and cry and to be forced to do a whole lot more.

And I would expect that there is probably no way to avoid bankruptcy...

 

[AlBell]

Were I in such a situation, I'd do exactly as much as the lawyers said I had to.

Just like BP.

This doesn't mean that it would help the greater good, but a CEO isn't in the position of being a benefactor to humanity, but a steward of the shareholder's capital.

And I would expect there to be a hue and cry and to be forced to do a whole lot more.

Seems right to me.

And I would expect that there is probably no way to avoid bankruptcy...

I suspect BP will survive just fine, thank you, and that lawsuits will be ongoing for decades.

 

[Puppycow]

Surprise, surprise!

The official estimate has been revised upward again!

Reporting from Washington and Los Angeles —
Government scientists said Thursday that as many as 40,000 barrels of oil have been flowing daily from the blown-out BP well, doubling earlier estimates and greatly expanding the scope of what is already the largest spill in U.S. history.

 

[BenBurch]

45 days * 40,000 bbl * $4000/bbl fine = $7.2 Billion.

 

[BenBurch]

Was BP covered for this by underwriters?

 

[Blue Mountain]

45 days * 40,000 bbl * $4000/bbl fine = $7.2 Billion.

BP's profit statement, 1Q 2010 (and other quarterly press releases from BP, found using Google)

First quarter 2010 | $6.1 billion
Fourth quarter 2009 | $4.3 billion
Third quarter 2009 | $5.3 billion
Second quarter 2009 | $4.4 billion
First quarter 2009 | $2.6 billion
Total since January 2009 | $22.7 billion

Remember, these are profits, not revenues.

 

[Bikewer]

NPR was one of the first news agencies to have scientists estimate the actual oil leakage as vastly more than the original estimates.
CNN has been pretty consistently reporting on various "lowballing" practices on the part of BP, including not making high-def video of the leak(s) available to scientists until very recently, and only when pressured to do so.