Sunday, July 14, 2013

Deepwater Horizon

As the BP oil spill trial approaches the second phase, source control and flow estimates will come to the fore. Phase One of the trial dealt with how we got into this mess, Phase Two will deal with who did what to solve the problem and how big did it finally turn out to be. Given that those who caused the problem were sidelined by the legal ramifications, there is a new cast of characters, even at BP. The key point at issue from the government perspective is how much money in fines it will collect. The politicians of both parties have already outlined how they will spend the money. They and their acolytes in the media have been throwing around an estimate of 4.9 million barrels of oil at either $1,100 or $4,300 per barrel. Rounding up they expect to be able to spend $20 billion.
Fuelfix has a nice story on the BP response from its expert witness. Martin J. Blunt. Here are the key points taken from page 9 of Exhibit One, Part 1 of 2.

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