OIL FLOW HAS INCREASED...OR AT LEAST THE NUMBERS USED TO DESCRIBE IT HAVE

I think that if I was in charge of making up the numbers to report to the public I'd go real high. That way, every once in a while I could lower them a bit; make everybody feel better. I'm thinking these guys have never been in any kind of negotiations before.

"The official estimate of the flow rate from the leaking gulf oil well has surged again, with government officials announcing Tuesday that 35,000 barrels (1.47 million gallons) to 60,000 barrels (2.52 million gallons) of oil a day are now gushing from the reservoir deep beneath the gulf.

Just last week, government-appointed scientists on the Flow Rate Technical Group estimated the leak at roughly 20,000 to 40,000 barrels a day (840,000 to 1.68 million gallons), but that came with a caveat: They were using older data, including video taken of the damaged riser pipe when it still had multiple leaks.

After the pipe was cut on June 3, and a containment cap placed on it, the flow became easier to estimate. In the past 24 hours scientists have taken direct measurements of pressures inside the so-called top hat that is collecting oil and gas."
Washington Post

CONTAINMENT CAP IS WORKING-MAYBE

"A containment cap on a ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico is now funnelling off 10,000 barrels of oil a day, BP's chief executive Tony Hayward says.

The amount has risen since Saturday, and implies more than half the estimated 12,000 to 19,000 barrels leaking each day is now being captured.

The spill has been described as the biggest environmental disaster in US history.

Mr Hayward told the BBC that BP would restore the Gulf to its original state.

Speaking on the Andrew Marr Show, Mr Hayward said: "As we speak, the containment cap is producing around 10,000 barrels of oil a day to the surface."

Asked what amount of the estimate that represented, the BP chief executive said it was expected to be "the majority, probably the vast majority" of the oil gushing out."
BBC

Pardon my extreme skepticism but I don't trust anything related to this blowout or any announcements from BP our their willing partner the U.S. government. The numbers published on the amounts flowing from this pipe have jumped all over the place and according to many experts have been wildly understated. So if they want to say they are recovering 10% or 50% or whatever amount of oil, how can they know and how can we trust their numbers? Not to mention the very real possibility that there are other, more substantial leaks closer to the well head.

Pray that we've rounded a corner but don't trust what you're told.

HAS THE BLOWOUT BEEN STOPPED?

Why can't we get simple yes or no answers about anything anymore? The Coast Guard says it's fixed while BP says it's not. Yes or no, that's all we ask. If they don't know then don't say anything. WTF??!!!!

"Engineers have stopped the flow of oil and gas into the Gulf of Mexico from a gushing BP well, the federal government's top oil-spill commander, U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, said Thursday morning.

The "top kill" effort, launched Wednesday afternoon by industry and government engineers, had pumped enough drilling fluid to block oil and gas spewing from the well, Allen said. The pressure from the well was very low, he said, but persisting.

Once engineers had reduced the well pressure to zero, they were to begin pumping cement into the hole to entomb the well. To help in that effort, he said, engineers also were pumping some debris into the blowout preventer at the top of the well."
LA Times

"BP refused to say Thursday morning whether the latest effort to staunch the huge oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico had stopped the flow.

"The operation continues," BP managing director Bob Dudley told TODAY’s Meredith Vieira, but it is "too early to draw conclusions from it."

Dudley did say that "top kill" was "moving the way we wanted to" and that the situation would be clearer later in the day.

"It wouldn’t be reasonable for anybody to draw a conclusion from that until we’ve killed the well for good," he told Vieira."
MSNBC

"Scientists say the Gulf of Mexico spill has now leaked far more oil than the Exxon Valdez disaster — maybe even three-and-a-half times as much.

That makes the Gulf spill by far the worst in U.S. history.

U.S. Geological Survey Director Dr. Marcia McNutt said Thursday that a government task force estimates that anywhere from 500,000 gallons to a million gallons a day has been leaking. BP and the Coast Guard had put the flow at about 210,000 gallons per day.

The new government estimate means at least 19 million gallons and maybe as much as 39 million gallons have leaked in the five weeks since an oil rig exploded and sank. Exxon Valdez spilled about 11 million gallons.

BP is trying to plug the leak and says it has siphoned off about 924,000 gallons."