We were initially told that the flowrate exiting the broken pipe was about 5000 barrels of crude per day. In order to put this number in perspective, the velocity of the flow exiting the pipe was calculated. 5000 barrels per day is equivalent to a flow of 1170 cubic feet per hour. Knowing that the oil is exiting a 9 inch pipe (the 9 inch pipe is actually inside a larger pipe, 21 inches in diameter), the area can be calculated. The exit area is .44 square feet. Dividing the flow rate by the exit area results in the calculation of the velocity of the flow. The velocity of the flow is approximately 2660 feet per hour or .5 miles per hour. Can you imagine traveling in your car at half a mile per hour? The live feed of the spewing flow certainly appears to be moving a lot faster. Recently, new estimates of the flowrate have been placed at somewhere between 15000 and 19000 barrels per day. At a flowrate of 19000 barrels per day, the velocity of the flow is approximately 10,104.5 feet per hour or 1.9 miles per hour. Is this a reasonable figure? Who knows! Yet more recent estimates place the flowrate at 70000 barrels per day. If this figure is closer to the actual flowrate then, after 38 days of spewing, 2,660,000 barrels or 111,720,000 gallons of crude oil are in the Gulf. the point to all of this is that the numbers keep growing and no one knows for sure how much pressure is behind the flow and the difference in elevation between where the oil reserve is located and the outlet of the broken pipe. If this information were known then, an estimate of the flowrate could be calculated and compared with the calculations based on the video feed.