Oil Math-BP’s Con Game
Posted by LK on 6/05/10 • Categorized as Blog, Energy: alt and conventional, Environment, Featured, Financial Markets, Psychology
Do the oil math. I already have.
There’s a good chance that, as you begin to see where the numbers are going, you’ll become so apoplectic that you won’t be able to continue. If you’ve got a heart condition, have your meds nearby. If you’re in the Gulf Coast region, lock up your firearms and give someone you trust the keys to the gun cabinet.
Earlier this week, before the riser (the pipe that, pre-disaster, led up to the surface) was untangled and a clean cut made, credible estimates of the amount of oil spewing from it ranged from around half a million to 4 million gallons/day. Although they don’t deserve it, let’s give the BP hooligans and our government’s eunuchs the benefit of the doubt, and put the figure at an even million.
This clean cut was ostensibly made so that BP could, in their words, “contain” the pipe; that is, collect some of the oil and bring it to the surface, thereby diminishing the amount entering the Gulf.
Here’s where the math gets interesting, or, more accurately, infuriating:
A spokesman for BP said that the cut would increase the amount of oil escaping from beneath the seabed by 20%, as there would now be an unimpeded pipe through which the oil could flow. Given BP’s history at estimating, let’s call it at least 20%. So even accepting the low-ball guesstimate of a less than reliable source, let’s say that 1,200,000 gallons are now flowing out of the pipe.
Today it was reported, by Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen (who seems like a good man caught in an impossible situation), that about 6,000 barrels of oil made it to tankers on the surface. There are 42 gallons of oil to a barrel. A bit of third grade multiplication gives us 252,000 gallons that were kept from seeping into the Gulf waters.
So the clean cut increased the flow by roughly 200,000 gallons, and 252,000 gallons were captured. Net-net, that’s a 52,000 gallon reduction from the pollution prior to this operation, or roughly 5%. Not a substantially different amount from pre-capture days. No change in crisis status. But we’ve become so mentally fatigued and resigned that anything deemed to be progress isn’t looked at nearly as critically as it might have been a month ago.
And BP now has 6,000 barrels of oil per day, at around $70/barrel, to play with. That’s $ 420,000/day, or $ 12.5 million/month, which for them is chump change, but still helps offset the payments they’re making for clean up costs and lost wages.
Let’s also not forget that we’re using BP’s numbers, which have been worse than useless up until this point. If one raises the estimate for oil spewing from the pipe even a small amount, there’s absolutely NO environmental benefit to this latest operation.
We have a grand illusion that Houdini would be proud of and BP should be ashamed of: the illusion of success.
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Are these numbers real? So all that they’ve stopped thus far is 5% of the spill? WTF?????
we have to do something. I feel helpless.
Nauseating math here. Thanks for posting.
What’s been truly frustrating about all this has been BP’s handling and control of the situation thus far. The only images we get from the sea floor are from BP’s cameras – why not drop a few of our own? And for too long when this first happened, we took BP’s word for it that there was no leak, and then just a minor one. Oops! And all along, of course, it’s seemed that BP was more interested in finding a way to continue to collect the oil than it was in simply stopping the leak – is this current “fix” another sign of that, perhaps? Like you pointed out, while they can’t tell us just how much oil is still leaking, they CAN tell us how much they’re putting back into their own tanks. Amazing.
And finally, there’s the lovely PR campaign BP is running now, with soft-focus commercials of BP execs speaking over soothing music, apologizing for the mess and promising to make it right…. Stop filming commercials and put that money into more research into stopping the leak! Your credibility is already shot, BP, and until you stop the flow of oil AND get every last bird, beach and blade of grass cleaned up, you won’t get anything but derision from me.
So painful, so scary…! And how much money is being put towards Google Adwords for all the “bad” keywords to be replaced by how hard BP is trying on first pages of Google. Shame!
Oh I think you have missed the real story here…I think that the real issue is whether or not BP is making money on each gallon spilled. I mean I am sure they have insurance with the government to protect them from such gigantic losses. Each gallon spilled is a tax free gallon they get to sell. Just saying.
Well, BP’s rep (not that good in the first place) has taken a blow with this whole oil fiasco, so they want to at least APPEAR like they’re doing something to fix it.
what a good read. more people should be exposed to the lies BP are selling as facts. a classic game of misdirection.
I am not so sure about that david, you are correct in stating that every drop of “rescued” oil is tax free, but is it really economically feasible for them to save the oil and then sell it to us? Probably not, but we are living in a time where oil is becoming more and more of an issue and to me, selling so called “reclaimed” oil might not be such a bad thing. Plus, this whole incident is a PR disaster for BP. Honestly, will you buy BP gasoline after this? To them, they are just trying to cut their losses where ever they can, and help fund the likely billion dollar effort to clean up a part of the world that might never fully recover from this disaster.
I’m enjoying the “Good cop: Obama, vs. the bad cop :
Tony Hayward” bull Shiite they are entertaining us with! Both are corporatist flunkies, both on the same side of the fence! BP supplies most if not all the fuel for the American Military!
Good grief. That is so scary. It’s been called ‘one of the greatest environmental challenges of our time’ and its hard to comprehend the long-term impact to animal and marine life. We may lose whole species from this. Its all very sad.
Yep!!! Obama is being a real a$$ kicker about this out of control disgusting problem, huh? What is really sad is that our fearless prez can now use this as ammunition to close down further efforts to obtain domestic oil. Thus, our foreign oil-addiction will continue to leave us at the mercy of the Saudis, maybe even Obama’s buddy ,just south of us, Chavez!