BP: Well Could Gush 100K Barrels a Day

Internal estimates much higher than what it first told Congress

By Polly Davis Doig, Newser Staff
Suggested by Disillusioned

Posted Jun 20, 2010 4:07 PM CDT

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BP: Well Could Gush 100K Barrels a Day — This image from early Sunday, June 20, 2010 shows oil continuing to gush from the broken wellhead, at the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. (AP Photo/BP PLC)

BP's doomsday scenario was that a ruptured well could gush up to 100,000 barrels of oil a day, according to internal documents released today by Rep. Ed Markey—a far cry from the 5,000 barrels at which it pegged the leak at the time it submitted the documents to Congress, notes Politico. The scenario is based on the blowout preventer and other equipment having been removed from the wellhead, which the AP notes was never done.

The document reads: "If (blowout preventer) and wellhead are removed and if we have incorrectly modeled the restrictions—the rate could be as high as ~100,000 barrels per day up the casing or 55,000 barrels per day up the annulus (low probability worst cases)."

(More Ed Markey stories.)

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