Reminder that BP's "good news" is only half the news

BP's siphoning kludge is "capturing about 15,000 barrels of oil a day," plus "methane and natural gas [that] is burned off [before the crude is] transferred to tankers and moved directly to refineries" (MSNBC). Yay! That's like 630,000 gallons of oil every day! That'll make a huge dent in America's daily oil consumption of 19.5 million barrels -- 819 million gallons -- per day.

But wait! Now that BP cut the kinked pipe, which was restricting the spew's flow like a kinked garden hose, in order to install their Rube Goldberg siphoning apparatus, the pipe is now releasing some 30,000 barrels (1.26 million gallons) of oil every day.

So remember that when BP crows about how much oil it's siphoning up (for refining and sale) through its dome contraption, BP is giving you only half the news. When news media report only BP's numbers, they're reporting only half the story. And it's also only half of what's continuing to flow into the Gulf of Mexico.

BP is keeping the oil it's siphoning. At this writing, crude is selling for USD 75.80/bbl (Bloomberg). If BP has a contract on this oil, it's making BP about $1.2 million per day on the recovery. The U.S. government can and should force BP to put all of this money into escrow. Call yer Senators and stuff.