Reclaimed BP Oil in Your Fuel Tank?

Although most of the almost 5 million barrels of oil from the BP oil spill is either degraded, burned, or otherwise gone, there are still about 585,000 barrels of recovered oil spill crude that can still be refined and sold.

The majority of the captured oil spill crude is from BP efforts to close off the ruptured well head. Since the BP oil spill crude is essentially contaminated, it wouldn’t bring top dollar. However, BP could still sell it to refineries as recovered oil or as “slops” at a significant cost savings to the refinery. Typically, 585,000 barrels of oil would bring about $50 million. A purchasing refinery could get that same amount of recovered oil for much less.

Oil refineries buy crude of varying quality from many different sources. It is the end product, gasoline or diesel fuel, that is sold to your neighborhood pumping stations. With such a relatively small amount, BP might decide to refine the oil spill crude itself and sell it as a finished product.

With BP looking at oil spill fines, clean-up, and containment costs ranging from $10 billion to more than $25 billion, every bit of profit from the world’s worst accidental oil spill is worth pursuing.