New Oil Spill figures 70,000 barrels per day

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Drill-rig owner seeks to limit liability; Gulf spill reportedly 70,000 barrels a day
06:57 PM

The owner of the drilling rig that burned and sank in the Gulf of Mexico wants a federal court in Houston to limit its liability for the massive oil spill to just $26.8 million, a small portion of the projected damage claims.

Transocean, which owns the Deepwater Horizon rig, said its insurer "demanded that the company file the petition in order to keep intact the insurance coverage on the rest of its fleet of 139 offshore drilling rigs," The Washington Post writes. As plaintiffs' lawyers see it, Transocean, the world's largest offshore drilling contractor, is "trying to consolidate the more than 100 lawsuits in a Houston court because Houston juries would be the most sympathetic to the oil industry." One lawyer said they would try to consolidate the lawsuits in New Orleans or Washington — presumably because juries would be more sympathetic to the plaintiffs.

See The Houston Chronicle for more comments from the lawyers.

BP says that since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded April 20 and sank two days later it has spent $450 million on the cleanup and efforts to cap the underwater gusher. The company expects to try again to cap the blowout in the next few days.

Here's some of the underwater video BP has released (after being pressured by the government and media outlets):

Today the federal Minerals Management Service said five oil and gas production platforms in the gulf have been shut voluntarily because of the spreading spill. Together they produce 2,300 barrels of oil a day, or 0.14% of Gulf oil production, and 1.2 million cubic feet of gas per day, about 0.02% of gas output in the Gulf.

Update at 7:31 p.m. ET: NPR says it has obtained "sophisticated scientific analysis of seafloor video" showing that the oil gushing from the ruptured pipes is "closer to 70,000 barrels a day," more than 10 times the Coast Guard's earlier estimate of 5,000 barrels. That works out to 2,940,000 gallons of oil a day. (A barrel contains 42 gallons.)

If confirmed by the Coast Guard it would mean the spill long ago eclipsed the 11 million gallons the Exxon Valdez tanker spilled in Prince William Sound in Alaska in 1989.

Today is the 24th day since the blowout, so that would work out to more than 70 billion gallons of crude oil that have poured into the Gulf — 70,560,000 to be exact.