BP well may be spewing 100,000 barrels a day, scientist says

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/06/07/95467/bp-well-may-be-spewing.html ^

[Red Badger]

It may be spewing ice cream and chocolate donuts............

[Graybeard58]

BP well may be spewing 100,000 barrels a day, scientist says

I read last night that it could spew for 30 years before it is exhausted and if so and at that rate, that pretty much wraps it up for the Atlantic Ocean.

[Redleg Duke]

In other words, "No matter how effective the top hat unit is, it will be considered inconsequential by the media and the administration".

Never let a good crisis go to waste!

[elpadre]

when I was a young man I believed everything a scientist said. As I have grown older, and possibly wiser, I question everything they say.

[Tijeras_Slim]

How do these asshats know anything? They’re just pulling numbers out of their butt.

Good thing Carl Sagan’s dead or we’d be hearing about “billyuns and billyuns” of barrels a day.

[chessplayer]

“I read last night that it could spew for 30 years before it is exhausted and if so and at that rate, that pretty much wraps it up for the Atlantic Ocean.”

Yup. One estimate says the pocket holds one billion barrels. At a rate of 100,000 a day, it would take 37.5 years for it to empty. The Atlantic would be gone for sure. It could cause the collapse of the entire bio-sphere of the planet.

[elpadre]

I remember as a kid in the 40’s the Kitty Hawk beach covered with oil as a result of a tanker being torpedoed. Several months later after a Northeaster or two, the beaches were clean and no sign of the oil anywhere. Perhaps what comes from he earth has a way of returning to the earth.

[marioinohio]

So whats that? Half a Exxon-Valdez a day?

It's much more than that. Exxon Valdez spewed 250,000 in total. link

[marioinohio]

What is your training or expertise on the field of estimating spills?

[marioinohio]

I’ll wait for someone from BP to tell us this. I stopped trusting Government officials years ago.

BP can't be honest, as the company has to pay fines depending on the number of barrels spilled.

[wbill]

I’ll wait for someone from BP to tell us this

If I remember right, the maximum output that BP was expecting from this well was something on the order of 5000 - 7000 barrels / day.

And, for clarification, since the MSM seems to use barrels and gallons more-or-less interchangeably, there are (I think) 40 gallons to a barrel. So 5000 barrels = 20000 gallons.

Wiser freepers can correct me, though. I'm not 100% certain of the numbers. And, I've no idea if the explosion might have "opened things up" and allowed more oil than originally expected to escape.

Anyhoo, I think that if they thought they could get 100K barrels /day out of ANYTHING, BP would be pulling out all the stops, full speed ahead, government lawsuits be damned. At current prices, that's what, 7 million bucks a day out of a single well? And a significant percentage of the total US consumption?

Do the math, it just doesn't add up. After all this is over (figure by this fall it will have faded from the headlines and be a distant memory) people will look over the aftermath and conclude that it was 20% "a problem" and 80% "utterly overhyped".

[P-Marlowe]

I’ll wait for someone from BP to tell us this. I stopped trusting Government officials years ago.

And you trust BP?

I've got a bridge I'd like to sell you.

[ddk632]

“I read last night that it could spew for 30 years before it is exhausted and if so and at that rate, that pretty much wraps it up for the Atlantic Ocean.”

Yup. One estimate says the pocket holds one billion barrels. At a rate of 100,000 a day, it would take 37.5 years for it to empty. The Atlantic would be gone for sure. It could cause the collapse of the entire bio-sphere of the planet.

If the bio-sphere of the planet goes it might affect the ACME volcanic seismic pseudo-tectonic replacement material, possibly generating quantum anti-matter and reversing gravity, causing the Earth to self-convert into a black hole which would then swallow our entire solar system.

Clearly, someone's ass needs to be kicked, after a round of golf.

[ Disclaimer: The preceding statements are intended solely for humorous consumption, and in no way reflect the actual views of the author of this comment. In fact, when it comes to oil spills, quantum ACME materials, or golf, I do not know what I am talking about. ]

[VeniVidiVici]

The only thing clear at this point is they have NO IDEA how much is flowing per day.

[Wonder Warthog]

"And, I've no idea if the explosion might have "opened things up" and allowed more oil than originally expected to escape."

Emphatically no. The explosion happened on the drill ship on the surface. No possible way to affect downhole. Flow might increase, but any such increase will be driven by things happening in the oil reservoir.

[wbill]

Good, I was hoping that more learned Freepers than I would jump in.

So, is it possible to get 100K bpd out of a well that was expected to produce a small fraction of that? Any idea?

[dangerdoc]

Later today I am going to announce that a zillion gallons of oil a day are spilling into the gulf.

I have had my cat watching the video feed and feel that my numbers are very accurate.

[sauropod]

It’s simple fluid mechanics. Any sophomore or junior year engineer would know the calculation.

[Mouton]

Funny.

The production math is relative straight forward as flow through a cylinder over time. I do not know the diameter of the pipe used here thus I do not know the flow rate. Previous estimates have ranged up to 50000 barrels a day or about 2 million gallons. To me, that seems about maximum if it is free flowing with no collars and no resistance. To date, the largest flowing well in the GOM is 30K barrels a day btw. But who am I to doubt your cat.

[dangerdoc]

There are 42 gallons per barrel of oil so 5000 barrels is 210,000 gallons.

100,000 barrels is 4.2 millions gallons.

We import more than 4 billion barrels of oil per year.

100,000 barrels per day would be about 37 million barrels per year. A small fraction of imports but would worth about $2,800,000,000 per year. A staggering figure for one well, and a number that I find beyond belief.