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Homepage / Science / Energy / Coal, Oil and Gas / The Deepwater Horizon Spill by the Numbers

The Deepwater Horizon Spill by theNumbers

As days stretched into weeks, then weeks into months, BP's Deepwater Horizon wellheadcontinued to spew millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. From the latest figuresreleased by Unified Incident Commanda joint venture between BP, Transocean and multiplegovernment agencieswe give you the facts and figures to put the spill in perspective.

August 10, 2010 12:39 PM

The Leak4.9 million: Barrels of oil (205.8 million gallons)leaked from the Deepwater Horizon well, about halfthe amount of crude oil the U.S. imports per day19: Times more oil leaked from Deepwater Horizonthan spilled from the Exxon Valdez in 1989 (10.8million gallons)62,000: Barrels leaking per day when the wellheadfirst broke, roughly the amount of oil consumed inDelaware each day53,000: Barrels leaking per day when the well wascapped on July 15, roughly the amount of oilconsumed in Rhode Island each day397.7 million

: Dollars' worth of the oil spilled atcurrent market prices ($81.17 per barrel)665: Miles of coastline contaminated by oil

The Cleanup16.5 million: Gallons of oil chemically dispersed by

National Incident Command32.9 million: Gallons of oil naturally dispersed,

which means it has broken into droplets smallerthan the diameter of a human hair51.5 million: Gallons of oil evaporated or dissolved.This differs from natural dispersion becauseinstead of breaking down into small droplets, the oilbreaks apart molecularly and dissolves into thewater.6.2 million: Gallons of oil skimmed off the Gulf by

the more than 830 skimming vessels used in theresponse35 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 burns53.5 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 theUnited States.10.4 million: Feet of sorbent boon (8.7 million) and containment boom (2.7 million) currently

deployed to contain the oil1.8 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

people had been deployed.

57,539: Square miles of Gulf waters that remain closed to fishing

In Perspective184,181: Times you could drive a Toyota Prius (48

mpg highway) around the Earth at the equator usingthe lost oil69,068: Times you could drive a Hummer H3 (18

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Popular Mechanics' Deepwater Horizon Ongoing Coverage

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mpg highway) around the Earth311: Olympic-size sw imming pools that could be

filled with the oil that leaked from DeepwaterHorizon13,208: Homes that could have been heated for one

year (approximately 2 gallons of heating oil areproduced from one barrel, with an averageAmerican household using 742 gallons per year)

(Sources: Unified Incident Command(pdf), Energy

Information Association andFueleconomy.gov)

7:22:25 PM

Friday, Augus t 13, 2010

That's 1 square mile contaminated to a depth of 1 foot!

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