NEW ORLEANS — When BP used a capping stack to seal its blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico, the device didn’t just shut the source of the nation’s worst offshore oil spill. Its pressure gauge also provided scientists with crucial data about the rate that crude was spewing from the well when engineers finally plugged the leak in July 2010.
Experts for the British oil giant and the federal government used the pressure gauge data in calculating how much oil spilled into the Gulf during the 87 days it took to plug the well. But each side will provide a federal judge with very different estimates when the second phase of a trial resumes today for litigation spawned by the spill.
U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier is scheduled to hear three weeks of testimony from dueling experts to help him calculate how much oil spilled into the Gulf — a key factor in determining how much more money BP and its contractors owe for their roles in the deadly disaster.
Justice Department attorneys will try to persuade Barbier that the pressure gauge on the capping stack provided the best set of data about the flow of oil from the well.
“The pressure data, collection rates and geometry of the capping stack are by far the most accurate and reliable sources of information on flow rate, and [they] were recognized as such by all parties at the time,” they wrote in a pretrial filing.
BP, however, said the government’s experts ignored other important data. Company lawyers said its experts used a “proven methodology” that doesn’t require “simplistic and unverified assumptions about flow conditions.”
