It’s now Day 54 of the ongoing Montara oil spill off Western Australia, and the second attempt to intercept the damaged well and shut it down has failed. The next try should happen over the weekend. Third time’s the charm – we hope.

At this point, using PTTEP’s estimate of 400 barrels of oil spilled per day, at least 900 thousand gallons have been spilled into the Timor Sea since the blowout occurred on August 21. Using our estimate of 3,000 barrels per day, based on the known flow rates of nearby wells, nearly 7 million gallons have been spilled so far.