US officials revise the oil flow estimates again!

Washington - Based on updated information and scientific assessments, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, and Chair of the National Incident Command’s Flow Rate Technical Group (FRTG) Dr. Marcia McNutt (Director of the U.S. Geological Survey) today announced an improved estimate of how much oil is flowing from the leaking BP well.

Secretary Chu, Secretary Salazar, and Dr. McNutt convened a group of federal and independent scientists on Monday to discuss new analyses and data points obtained over the weekend to produce updated flow rate estimates. Working together, U.S. government and independent scientists estimate that the most likely flow rate of oil today is between 35,000 and 60,000 barrels per day. 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.

http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/go/doc/2931/661583/

That is 1.5 to 2.5 million gallons of oil spilling into the gulf everyday. That is up to 3.3 million barrels of oil to date and by mid July which is when they 'expect' to capture more oil that number would be somewhere around 4.5 million barrels of oil.

Given that these numbers are not revised up again...:(

I still figure the real number's somewhere around 100K BBL/day.

If you do the math. 4300 dollars per barrel of oil spilled. They will have to pay a penalty of over 20 billion dollars.

But if the relief well doesn't work, the penalty (if exacted, which is unlikely) could exceed even BPs worth.

And its way below what COULD gush if the well's casing collapses.

So we're talking one Exxon Valdez every 10 days, 13 Exxon Valdezes worth of oil spilled so-far.