wow - dutty, that pic says it all.
an engineering prof from purdue uses a different method to calculate the leak rate and gets 70 000 barrels per day! compared to 5 000 from BP.
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BP to try pipe insertion today to stem oil gushing into Gulf(CNN) -- BP will try again within the next day to cap a well that has gushed millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, the energy company said Friday.
An effort last weekend to plug the leak with a four-story containment dome failed when natural gas crystals collected inside the structure, plugging an outlet at the top.
The latest attempt will involve a tube designed to be inserted into a ruptured pipe, collect oil and send it to a vessel on the surface, said Mark Proegler, a BP spokesman.
The insertion tube is on the sea floor, and engineers plan to move it into place Friday, Proegler said. The company also has lowered a smaller containment dome for use if the insertion tube does not stem the flow of oil, he said.
In Washington, President Obama criticized executives from BP and two other companies for blaming each other for the catastrophe.
"It is absolutely essential that going forward, we put in place every necessary safeguard and protection so that a tragedy like this oil spill does not happen again," Obama said after meeting Friday with Cabinet members to discuss the spill.
"This is a responsibility that all of us share," he said. "The oil companies share it. The manufacturers of this equipment share it. The agencies in the federal government in charge of oversight share that responsibility. I will not tolerate more finger-pointing or irresponsibility."
BP's efforts to plug the leak come amid growing concern that the company has been low-balling how much oil has poured out of the well: A researcher says up to 70,000 barrels of oil could be leaking per day, and BP stands by a 5,000-barrel figure.Rep. Edward Markey, D-Massachusetts, sent BP a letter Friday asking for more details from federal agencies about the methods they are using to analyze the oil leak.
Markey, who chairs a congressional subcommittee on energy and the environment, said he will launch the formal inquiry after learning of independent estimates that are significantly higher than the amount BP officials have provided.
"The public needs to know the answers to very basic questions: How much oil is leaking into the Gulf and how much oil can be expected to end up on our shores and our ocean environment?" Markey said in a letter to BP. "I am concerned that an underestimation of the flow may be impeding the ability to solve the leak and handle management of the disaster."
BP has said that since the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drill rig that about 5,000 barrels -- or 210,000 gallons -- have been pouring out of the well. The company says it reached that number using data, satellite images and consultation with the Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
"I think that's a good range," Doug Suttles, BP's CEO for exploration and production, said Friday.
But a researcher at Purdue University said BP's estimate is too low. Associate Professor Steve Wereley says about 70,000 barrels of oil are leaking each day, based on an analysis of video of the spill.Wereley said he spent two hours Thursday analyzing the video using a technique called particle image velocimetry. He said there is a 20 percent margin of error, which means between 56,000 and 84,000 barrels could be leaking daily.
"You can't say with precision, but you can see there's definitely more coming out of that pipe than people thought," he said. It's definitely not 5,000 barrels a day."
At the Washington meeting, Obama consulted members of his Cabinet and other senior administration officials to determine the next steps in the effort to stop the oil spill, contain its spread and help affected communities.
The dispute over the size of the oil leak caps a week in which congressional committees grilled executives from BP and two other companies: drilling contractor Transocean Ltd., which owned the rig, and oilfield services contractor Halliburton, which was responsible for cementing the well shut once drilled.
The companies blamed each other.
BP pointed to Transocean, which said BP was responsible for the wellhead's design and Halliburton was responsible for the cement finishing work. Halliburton, in turn, said that its workers were just following BP's orders, but that Transocean was responsible for maintaining the rig's blowout preventer.
Obama took exception Friday.
"I did not appreciate what I considered to be a ridiculous spectacle during the congressional hearings into this matter," the president said. "You had executives of BP and Transocean and Halliburton falling over each other to point the finger of blame at somebody else. The American people could not have been impressed with that display, and I certainly wasn't."
BP, the Coast Guard, and state and local authorities have scrambled to keep the oil from reaching shore or the ecologically delicate coastal wetlands off Louisiana. They have burned off patches of the slick, deployed more than 280 miles of protective booms, skimmed as much as 4 million gallons of oily water off the surface of the Gulf and pumped more than 400,000 gallons of chemical dispersants onto the oil.
Investigators are still trying to determine what caused the April 20 explosion at the rig, which sank two days later. Eleven workers are missing and presumed dead.
