So BP has a "riser insertion tube" sucking up around 20 percent of the oil coming from the main leak -- roughly 1,000 barrels a day while there is, at minimum, another 4,000 barrels a day still spewing from the pipe (other estimates indicate upwards of 25-80,000 barrels a day).
Here's an important point: the tube is sucking the oil into a tanker. BP is harvesting the oil.
This got me to thinking about the ultimate motive of any multinational oil company: get the damn oil and sell it. I'm wondering if the leak couldn't have been plugged sooner had BP opted to forgo the oil and just plug the leak rather than using various contrived mechanisms that would both plug and leak while continuing to harvest the oil.
We don't know exactly how much oil has been ejected from the leak. We know it's anywhere from around 5,000,000 gallons to a new Exxon Valdez every two weeks. In addition to getting a precise number, I would like to know how much of the leak could have stopped if BP has just opted to plug the leak without also taking the oil.
Now, my caveat here is this: I don't know for certain whether plugging the leak and harvesting the oil are mutually exclusive or if both processes have to happen simultaneously. If it's the former, we deserve some answers and there needs to be some prosecutions.
As I mentioned earlier, if it's going to be harvested, all of the remaining oil should be donated to an environmental trust to be sold at market value with the proceeds used for the on-going restoration of the Gulf.