The cap is capturing a small amount of oil from the leak at the blow out preventer.
This small amount is already 10X the initial leak estimate from BP and twice the amount that BP and the Coast Guard settled on as the talking point leak rate for the initial 3 weeks of the gulf catastrophe.
With 10,000 barrels of oil being captures, underwater images (below) show massive amounts of oil are still leaking out of the well.
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Note: does it bother y'all that the head of the coast guard says that "we're raising production"? I mean, isn't that the statement from a BP spokesman???
BP would have been plenty happy not to have to publish the information about how much oil is actually being captured. Especially when the amount of oil being captured is still just 1/6th of their own "worst case scenario" that was discussed in closed door sessions of congress.
Especially when, at the time they were already siphoning off 10,000 barrels of oil per day the images from the sea floor still looked like this:
BP camera stream of the leak
This video was taken at 3:27 AM, central time today (sunday 6/6/10)
Cap Reported to Recover 10,000 Barrels of Oil a Day
HOUSTON — A cap placed over a ruptured well spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico is capturing about 10,000 barrels a day, indicating engineers are making some progress in stanching the flow, Adm. Thad W. Allen of the Coast Guard, who is commanding the federal response to the disaster, said Sunday.
“We’re slowly raising production,” he said in an interview on the ABC television news program “This Week.”