Gulf Coat Oil Spill - Do The Math

Stopping Gulf Coast oil leak could take weeks

Let's do the math

It is 4/30/2010

The leak has been going from the 20th, 10 days so far.

Each day it has leaked 5000 barrels.

The Exxon Valdez spilled 250,000 barrels of oil.

250,000 / 5000 = 50

Which means that it will take 50 days from the 20th to spill as much oil as did the Exxon Valdez.

It has already been 10 days from the 20th of April, 2010. So, we have another 40 days until it is equal in volume to the previous oil spill disaster.

The thing about this situation, is that it is potentially a leak which will keep on spilling oil into the ocean continuously, for months or even years if nothing is done to stop it.

It will take 30 days to cap the spill. Let's hope that it works.

In the mean time, they will try shutting the valve with the submersibles.

Because I really know nothing about the valve or the equipment and surrounding environment, I can't say why the remote control submersibles can't close the valve, but I would find that out exactly to be sure. I wish that I could download all of the camera movies from the submersibles, but that isn't possible. Without knowing I can't offer any suggestions.

I also want to know the pressure of the oil shooting out of the leaks. Is it above normal? Could that be hampering closure efforts?