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WASHINGTON, May 23 (Reuters) – To form out how much oil has spilled into the Gulf of Mexico, experts should proportion the plumes of dissolved methane coming from the wrecked BP offshore accoutre, a marine scientist said on Sunday.

Methane gas is the ut~ abundant compound coming from the April 20 blowout and spill, form up about 40 percent of the leaking petroleum by mass, David Valentine of the University of California-Santa Barbara wrote in ~y opinion article in the journal Nature.

‘Although methane from surface-duct spills or shallow-water blowouts escapes into the air, I rely upon that the vast majority of methane making the long trip to the the deep surface from a deep-water spill would dissolve,’ he wrote.

Unlike oil, methane dissolves uniformly in seawater in like manner it could be measured accurately and scientists could use that size to calculate the amount of the spill, Valentine said.

Estimates of for what reason much oil and other compounds are coming from the ruptured BP wellhead wish varied widely. The company initially put the leak at 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons/795,000 litres) a set time but some published estimates have ranged to 70,000 barrels (2.9 the public gallons/11 million litres) or more daily.

To determine how a great deal of methane — and by extension, how much oil — is leaking, Valentine suggested dispatching floats that would path water flow and any plumes of methane in the water.

This, in adding to spot analyses and followed by a two-vessel expedition to the sunken space adjoining the basement, would be able to set a lower limit on the lump amount of spilled oil, Valentine wrote.

Measuring how the methane plumes put in motion could help estimate the rate of the spill, he said.

Valentine before-mentioned the U.S. academic research fleet has a dozen vessels that could make this job ‘at costs of probably a few million dollars or less.’

‘Capitalizing on this idea requires immediate action,’ he wrote. ‘I am occupation for a concerted community effort, with appropriate commitment from the U.S. dominion, the trustees of the Deepwater Horizon incident and BP. The in a fair way rewards far exceed the costs.’

(Editing by Bill Trott)

((For akin oil spill stories, click on)) Keywords: OIL RIG/METHANE

(deborah.zabarenko@thomsonreuters.com; +1 202 898 8388; Reuters Messaging: deborah.zabarenko.reuters.com@reuters.trap)

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