BP Collecting 2,000 Barrels per Day "40% of Spill"

Al.com

BP says its mile-long tube siphoning oil from a blown-out well is bringing more crude to the surface. In a news release today, BP PLC said the narrow tube is now drawing 2,000 barrels a day for collection in a tanker, double the amount when it started operation Sunday. A barrel equals 42 gallons. BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles has said the company hopes the method can draw about half the leaking oil. _al.com

The 2,000 barrels per day recovered is estimated to be 40% of the total ongoing spill rate.

You can see the recovered natural gas being flared in the image above.

The NOAA is projecting the possibility of a long "tail" flowing southward from the main spill and being engaged in the "loop current" of the Gulf westward. There is also speculation regarding the possibility that currents could pull some oil eastward and around Florida.

A tendril of oil from the Gulf of Mexico spill is "increasingly likely" to be captured over the next few days by the warm Loop Current, an extension of the Gulf Stream into the Gulf of Mexico, and could be pulled towards the Florida Straits and the rich coral reefs of the Florida Keys in eight to 10 days, a NOAA administrator said Tuesday.

..."That oil, if it gets into the Loop Current, will become very, very dilute and will be highly weathered," said Jane Lubchenco, a marine scientist who leads the federal agency overseeing ocean issues. "Its state will be in continuous change as it moves farther along. As it travels, it will become more highly weathered and more dilute. _NOLA

Tar balls from oil seeps are not that infrequent along the Gulf. The hysteria surround the current spill is so high that any trace of tar within 5,000 miles of the Gulf will likely be attributed to the Deepwater Horizon spill.

Some online "news" providers have taken to photo-shopping satellite photos of the spill to make them appear many times larger and more ominous. Many online photos purporting to display environmental damage from the current spill are actually taken from oil spill disasters many years old. The purpose of this media deception is clearly to inflame hysteria and anger in the reading public.

When China, Cuba, Russia, and Venezuela drill in the Gulf and the Caribbean, they will not care about a few small spills of this nature. The offshore will be drilled regardless of environmental hazard -- so it is important that the lessons of this spill be applied to future offshore drilling by more responsible western oil companies. (responsible is a relative term -- eg see the Obama Pelosi regime)

Oil will become very important over the next 20 to 50 years in bridging the transition to cleaner and more sustainable energy sources such as advanced nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, enhanced geothermal, and perhaps some more esoteric technologies waiting in the wings. Perhaps even more important than oil will coal.

So it is vital that we not allow western industries and economies to succumb to the energy starvation and carbon hysteria policies of Obama Pelosi, and the rest of the scam rackets out there.