New report says oil spill could be 50,000 barrells a day

Comment directed to the imbeciles in here that think this will have little or no affect on the Gulf or rest of the country...

Now listen you morons, this has the potential making of the worst oil disaster in the United States and definately making the top 10 worst oil disasters of all time in notorious world record oil/ecological disasters. We will not know until the actual barrel per day figure is revealed (expect that by next week or even possibly never revealed to us) I put my money on the Prof. at Florida State University to be telling me a more accurate depiction of what is going on then the US Gov't. (His estimate of 25,000 barrels a day is his current estimate)This vein of oil that is spilling uncontrollably from the Earth can flow for years at this volume if not capped or sealed.If in 90 day's the attempt at capping this thing fails which in my estimate has less than a 50/50 chance of succeeding than what? Another 90 days? 120? 6 months? a year? 2 years? you get my point? It is a valve that cannot be turned off that easily. If this thing then ruptures and the pipe blows out, then there is no answer to the problem....
My neighbor works for Schlumberger and has been on this rig in the past he is a senior roughneck, been doing this for almost 30 years, we talk quite a lot and he is not feeling good about this at all. I can pick up on his mood. Having been involved with crude for that long you know what your dealing with. He just shakes his head sips his beer and basically say's god help us...
One final thing... For those who own pools,say a small one oh 10,000 gallons, for arguments sake take a gallon of Vavoline or Quaker State oil and drop it in your pool then turn on your pool filter let it run for 5 minutes...Got a mess? Yeah I thought so...
For the rest of us who love the Gulf Coast,Nature, and what this planet has to offer us in it's beauty and greatness... Go take your family out to dinner tonite and as long as you can afford it while prices are reasonable and it is available,have a large platter of Seafood, Shrimp and Crab and don't forget the grouper and Lobsta before it dissapears alltogether on the menu of your favorite seafood restaurant!!! God help us and bless us all!

No, it could be the worst by far....If they cant stop this, it would probably be more than all oil spills combined

The Well that exploded was the Deepwater Horizon well that was drilled on the Tiber Oilfield.

"The Tiber oilfield is a deepwater offshore oilfield in the Gulf of Mexico, discovered by BP in September 2009. Described as a "giant" find,[2] it is estimated to contain 4 to 6 billion barrels (640×10^6 to 950×10^6 m3) of oil in place[3], although BP states it is too early to be sure of the size[2] - a "huge" field is usually considered to contain 250 million barrels (40×10^6 m3). It required the drilling of a 10,685-metre (35,056 ft) deep well under 1,260 metres (4,130 ft) of water,[4] making it one of the deepest wells drilled at the time of discovery[4] (the drilling rig's owner states "the deepest ever".[5])"

BP Finds 'Giant' Oil Source Deep Under Gulf of Mexico
Extreme Conditions Mean It Will Be Years Until Production

BP's major oil discovery was made by the oil rig Deepwater Horizon, which drilled the deepest well ever drilled.
BP's major oil discovery was made by the oil rig Deepwater Horizon, which drilled the deepest well ever drilled.

By Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 3, 2009

BP said Wednesday that it made a "giant" oil discovery in the Gulf of Mexico, and analysts said that the find deep below the sea floor raised hopes that further exploration in the region could help sustain U.S. offshore oil production.

The discovery, known as Tiber, was made 250 miles southeast of Houston and was "in the same league" as other big fields BP has discovered in the Gulf of Mexico, BP spokesman Daren Beaudo said. The company would not make any estimates on the amount of oil its latest find could yield, but the biggest platform in those other fields, Thunder Horse, is producing as much as 300,000 barrels a day.

The exploration well used to find the Tiber field was the deepest vertical well ever drilled, according to Guy Cantwell, communications director at Transocean, the offshore drilling company that owns the rig. Working conditions were challenging, he said. The rig, the Deepwater Horizon, dangled about a million pounds of well casing while floating in 4,132 feet of water, and then drilled another 30,923 feet below the sea floor. Temperatures at the sea floor were about 35 degrees, while the temperature of fluids in the well miles below was 250 degrees.

Bob MacKnight, a senior consultant with the Washington consulting firm PFC Energy, cautioned that while the big new discoveries were welcome news, they might not boost overall U.S. oil output because other Gulf of Mexico fields are expected to decline. "We really need this," he said. "After 2012, given current developments, we will see production start to decline. Without continued discoveries . . . that decline could be steep."

Production in the Gulf of Mexico accounts for about a quarter of total U.S. oil production, or about 1.2 million barrels a day. U.S. production in the Gulf peaked in 2003 at 1.56 million barrels a day, according to the Energy Information Administration.

"So sustaining that going forward is a really important thing from an energy independence standpoint," MacKnight said. He noted that most Gulf of Mexico production wells tend to hit their peak within a year or two, and then begin to drop steeply three to five years later.

Development of deepwater discoveries takes time. BP's Thunder Horse discovery was made in 1999, but the platform, beset by technical problems and hurricanes, didn't begin producing until June 2008.

Daniel Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, said that the discovery "demonstrates how technology continues to expand the horizon of the Gulf of Mexico."

BP said that the well struck oil in "multiple reservoirs" in the Lower Tertiary geologic zone, a layer of the earth's crust dating back 38 million to 68 million years. More than 10 discoveries have been made at that level in the Gulf, including BP's Kaskida find, which has estimated reserves -- about a third or less recoverable -- of 4 billion to 6 billion barrels. "We view the Lower Tertiary as one of the next big waves of development in the Gulf of Mexico," Beaudo said.

The new discovery is welcome news for BP, which owns 62 percent of the project. In recent years BP has struggled with disputes with partners in a Russian joint venture, delays in its Thunder Horse platform, leaks in its Alaska pipeline and fallout from a Texas refinery explosion. But the British company has continued to pursue a strategy focused on opportunities to tap giant oil reservoirs, whether in the Gulf of Mexico, Iraq or Russia.
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Conoco Phillips owns 18 percent of the Tiber project and the Brazilian state oil company Petrobras owns 20 percent. Brazil's president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, this week vowed to give Petrobras operating rights in huge fields recently discovered off the coast of Brazil, instead of using a concession system. When foreign companies are needed to help cover costs, Petrobras would still retain a 30 percent interest, news agencies said.

Yergin said that the latest BP discovery "also shows the value of having different companies with different perspectives and different approaches working in a province like the Gulf of Mexico."

1 barrel of oil = 42 gallons

6 billion barrels = 252 Billion gallons

Please some expert, could you please tell me this is not even a possibility..

Could this actually happen?

If it is possible, what EXACTLY would this mean?

So this leak is coming from that giant well?

Is that what this means?

Yes that is what the article says...

A giant oil field...4 to 6 billion barrels

HAHAHAH DIE FISHIES!

You are a moron.

They really don't know, but last night I was looking at some data from a preliminary mapping of the oil reserve (before they began drilling) and it was estimated to be tens of millions of barrels.

No, I found the answer..

It is 4 to 6 BILLION barrels of oil discovered in this field..

We're going to need a ship with a long vacuum hose to suck up the bottom of the gulf.

Something like the vacuum on the teletubbies.

Probably more profitable doing that than the oil sands of Canada.

Thought you liked DOOM fag boy?

nobody could possible be that stupid. insane maybe? but not stupid.

250 deg .. geesh! anyone have a clue as to what the pressure of the gushing oil is??

everything looks like bullshit when you've got your
head up your ass.

It takes a special kind of species to poke a hole in a 50 million year old blister underneath 35,000 feet of ocean and rock and then fuck it all up. But yes, we are that species.

5 billion barrels = 2 trillion gallons of oil
2 trillion * 10 000 = 2.0 × 1016

315 million cubic miles is seawater.
[link to www.lenntech.com]
100 million cubic miles is seawater in western hempisphere.
1,000,000,000,000,000,000 (1.0 × 1020) gallons salt water in Western hemisphere
2 trillion gallons of oil * 10,000 gallons polluted water = 2.0 × 1016
only 4 zeros difference and that is taking 2 zeros off the polluted ratio.