Playing With Numbers
Rick over at Independent News doesn’t even pretend to be polite any more when reporting BP statements. BP now says that they are only getting 92,400 gallons [2200 barrels] through their “siphon tube”, not the 210,000 gallons [5000 barrels] they reported yesterday. I’m sure they have a wildly improbable reason for this claim, like every other. [BTW, the 210,000 gallon/day figure for the 3-inch tube is in line with the flow rate for a standard 2½-inch fire hose, just under 150 gallons/minute.]
From McClatchy’s story – Gulf oil spill: New figure on leak’s size will come ‘next week’
BP’s announcement implicitly criticized Werely’s higher estimates. BP said that the riser, the pipe between the wellhead and the drilling platform, is 19.5 inches in diameter, but the accident damaged it and reduced its diameter by 30 percent, and a drill pipe trapped inside it reduced the flow by 10 percent more, the company said. “Thus, some third party estimates of flow, which assume a 19.5 inch diameter, are inaccurate,” it said.
The only way they would know that damage had cause a “30% reduction” would be if they knew what the actual flow was and compared that to the flow of an undamaged riser. They have maintained that they are too busy to actually measure the flow. BP just throws around numbers to confuse the issue.
