Source On April 22, 2010, as the doomed Deepwater Horizon oil rig was sinking off the Louisiana coast, a maritime expert told BP that its Macondo well would spew 82,000 barrels of crude a day into the Gulf of Mexico if nothing blocked the opening. At that moment, the U.S. government was trying to get BP to say how much oil might be flowing into the sea so officials could answer a crescendo of questions from the media and, more importantly, muster the proper equipment to plug the leak.
