British Petroleum, the company whose drill site is spewing thousands of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico each day, could pay for the entire costs of its cleanup thus far with just 3.8 days of profits, according to a new analysis.
The Washington Post reported Tuesday that the company is spending about $17.5 million a day on cleanup and mitigation efforts, which are aimed at stemming the flow of oil from a now-leaking well and containing the existing spill. The sum total of the firm's expense has been about $350 million.
This compares with $93 million -- a day -- the company earned in the first quarter of 2009.
Using these figures, the liberal blog ThinkProgress calculated that BP could pay for the entirety of their cleanup efforts so far with just 3.8 days of profits.
"For now," the Post wrote, "at least, BP's prodigious costs combating the oil spill in the Gulf are outweighed by prodigious profits."
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