Flow Rate Remains Critical Unanswered Question in BP Oil Disaster

After several days of pressing BP and government officials for answers, there is still no clarity about the wide discrepancy between estimates by BP and the government and independent analysts regarding the flow rate at which oil is gushing into the Gulf from the uncontrolled riser pipe.

Nor is the exact size of the spill known with any certainty.  Scientists have said that calculating the size of the spill carefully will be critical in order to predict the amount of damage the oil and chemicals could do in the ocean and onshore in the near term and in the future.

So what is the flow rate?  Is it 5,000 barrels a day, as BP and the government have repeatedly claimed in recent weeks? Or is it closer to 80,000 or 100,000 barrels a day, as some independent analysts have guessed based on footage of the oil gushing out of the riser pipe?

Congress will hold a hearing tomorrow to question government officials and scientists about the size of the oil spill and the flow rate.  The House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment is holding the hearing, "Sizing up the BP Oil Spill: Science and Engineering Measuring Methods."

There are plenty of good questions that Congress must press BP and the federal response team to answer.

Why did BP late last week suddenly cancel plans to fly scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute to Louisiana to use underwater ultrasound equipment to measure the flow of oil and gas from the ocean floor?

Who came up with the 5,000 barrels/day estimate anyway?  Most media reports suggest that it was BP, but the New York Times reported last week:
“The figure of 5,000 barrels a day was hastily produced by government scientists [NOAA] in Seattle. It appears to have been calculated using a method that is specifically not recommended for major oil spills.”

Is it possible that BP is more concerned with limiting liability in the long run than telling the whole truth about what it may know about the flow rate or other indicators of the extent of the spill?

If the leaks are all capped before independent analysts are able to confirm the flow rate and then estimate the size of the oil plumes more accurately, will BP escape responsibility for the full extent of the spill?  (The Atlantic has also raised this question in an article today by Nicole Allan titled “Why BP Won’t Measure the Oil Spill.” Allan asks, “Once the leak is plugged and the oil is dispersed throughout the Gulf, who's to say for certain whether BP's blown well gushed 5,000 or 80,000 barrels of oil a day?”)

BP is preparing its latest idea for stopping the gusher, called Operation Top Kill, which it hopes to deploy this weekend.  The plan entails pumping heavy drilling fluids through two 3-inch lines into the blowout preventer that sits on top of the Macondo wellhead a mile underwater. But isn’t the success of that effort also dependent on knowing the flow rate at the leak source? What if BP pushes the fluids into the pipe too fast?  Would that damage the pipe and set recovery efforts back further still?  Conversely, what if BP doesn’t pump the material fast enough, and then scraps that approach even though it might have worked if the flow rate were determined and engineers could crunch the numbers necessary to ensure the best chance of Top Kill working?

Hopefully the hearing in Congress tomorrow will help uncover the answers to these critical questions.
 

Photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Patrick Kelley, courtesy of Deepwater Horizon Response team.