26/11/2010 BP Oil Spill Statistics - Deepwater Hori…

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Hom epage / Science / Energy / Coal, Oil and Gas / The Deepwater Horizon Spill by the Num bers

The Deepwater Horizon Spill by the

Numbers
As days stretched into weeks, then weeks into months, BP's Deepwater Horizon wellhead
continued to spew millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. From the latest figures
released by Unified Incident Command—a joint venture between BP, Transocean and multiple
government agencies—we give you the facts and figures to put the spill in perspective.

BY JEREMY REPANICH Em ail Print RSS Share

August 10, 2010 12:39 PM

The Leak
4.9 million: Barrels of oil (205.8 million gallons)
leaked from the Deepwater Horizon well, about half
the amount of crude oil the U.S. imports per day Part Number / Keyword
19: Times more oil leaked from Deepwater Horizon
than spilled from the Exxon Valdez in 1989 (10.8
million gallons) FEATURED VIDEO
62,000: Barrels leaking per day when the wellhead
first broke, roughly the amount of oil consumed in
Delaware each day
53,000: Barrels leaking per day when the well was
capped on July 15, roughly the amount of oil
consumed in Rhode Island each day
397.7 million: Dollars' worth of the oil spilled at
current market prices ($81.17 per barrel)
665: Miles of coastline contaminated by oil

The Cleanup
16.5 million: Gallons of oil chemically dispersed by
National Incident Command
32.9 million: Gallons of oil naturally dispersed,
which means it has broken into droplets smaller
than the diameter of a human hair
51.5 million: Gallons of oil evaporated or dissolved.
This differs from natural dispersion because
instead of breaking down into small droplets, the oil
breaks apart molecularly and dissolves into the
water.
6.2 million: Gallons of oil skimmed off the Gulf by
the more than 830 skimming vessels used in the
response
35 million: Gallons directly recovered from the
wellhead into ships through the riser pipe and top-
hat systems

11.4 million: Gallons of oil has been removed by a

series of 411 controlled burns
53.5 million: Gallons of oil still remaining in the water or washed ashore
95.6 million: Potential gallons of gasoline leaked from the wellhead (approximately 19.5 gallons of
gas can be derived from one barrel of oil). That's about one-fourth of daily consumption in the
United States.
10.4 million: Feet of sorbent boon (8.7 million) and containment boom (2.7 million) currently
deployed to contain the oil
1.8 million: Gallons of both surface and subsea dispersant used by Unified Incident Command
28,900: Total number of personnel currently deployed in response to the spill. On July 8, 47,000 MORE FROM POPULAR MECHANICS
people had been deployed.
57,539: Square miles of Gulf waters that remain closed to fishing The World's 18 Strangest Airports
The World's 18 Strangest Bridges
The World's 18 Strangest Homes
In Perspective The World's 18 Strangest Tunnels
184,181: Times you could drive a Toyota Prius (48 The World's 18 Strangest Roadways
mpg highway) around the Earth at the equator using
the lost oil
69,068: Times you could drive a Hummer H3 (18 FROM OUR PARTNERS

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26/11/2010 BP Oil Spill Statistics - Deepwater Hori…
mpg highway) around the Earth
311: Olympic-size swimming pools that could be Digi-Key, Quality Components, Superior Service
filled with the oil that leaked from Deepwater Experience the 2011 Mercedes-Benz E-Class
Horizon See the 2011 Chevrolet Volt
13,208: Homes that could have been heated for one
year (approximately 2 gallons of heating oil are
produced from one barrel, with an average
American household using 742 gallons per year)

(Sources: Unified Incident Command (pdf), Energy

Information Association and Fueleconomy.gov)

Popular Mechanics' Deepwater Horizon Ongoing Cov erage

5 Wild Technologies Being Used Now to Clean Up the BP Oil Spill
The State of Oil Spill Cleaning Technology
After the Top Kill Failure, the Focus Turns Back to the Surface Cleanup
After the Spill, BP Continues to Sift Through Cleanup Tech Ideas
Inv estigativ e Report: How the BP Oil Rig Blowout Happened

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1 comment / Post a comment 1

Put another way 7:22:25 PM

Friday, August 13, 2010

Posted by: smalloy512 Report Abuse

That's 1 square m ile contam inated to a depth of 1 foot!

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