Gov't Task Force Finds BP Low-Balled Oil Spill Estimates

Confidential documents have been released showing that BP (NYSE:BP) estimated the spill in the Gulf of Mexico to be a lot larger than they publicly disclosed.

A government task force looking into the size of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico concludes that BP - the oil company responsible for handling the disaster - knowingly underestimated the volume of oil spilling into the Gulf.

BP has maintained that approximately 5,000 barrels a day were gushing from a burst oil pipeline at the bottom of the Gulf, but the task force says that number is likely between 12,000 and 19,000 barrels a day.

Documents obtained by the task force also find that BP knew the spill could be much bigger than they claim.

"Now we know what we always knew—this spill is much larger than BP has claimed," said Rep. Markey, who chairs the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming and the Energy and Environment Subcommittee in the Energy and Commerce Committee. "What’s clear is that BP has had an interest in low-balling the size of their accident, since every barrel spilled increases how much they could be fined by the government."

According to Rep. Markey's office, one document, dated April 27, shows that BP’s high estimate for the daily rate of the spill was 14,266 barrels per day, well within the midrange of today’s technical group report. Yet one day later, BP was asserting to the public that the spill was only 1,000 barrels a day – their low estimate for the size of the spill.

The PDF versions of the documents can be found HERE and HERE.

UPDATE: An official statement by the joint incident command center has been released that provides more details on the methodology the task force used to come to their flow rate estimates.