BP (NYSE:BP) Captures Most Oil Since Leak Began

Wednesday was a significant milestone for BP (NYSE:BP) in its ongoing battle to minimize the amount of oil flowing into the Gulf of Mexico, as they had their best day of capturing oil, reaching 18,600 barrels, almost 80 percent over the amount of oil captured the day before.

Much of that is due to the newest vessel added to the effort, the Q4000, which was able to capture 21 percent of all the oil on Wednesday, which was burned off. The rest was stored on the Discoverer Enterprise, the ship which has been used to process the oil captured since the cap was successfully put in place.

Next week BP has a goal of capturing 28,000 barrels a day, and as high as 53,000 barrels a day by the end of June.

Government scientists have been all over the map with their estimates of how much oil is leaking into the Gulf, but we should find out if the high end of their estimate - which is 60,000 barrels a day - is accurate when BP has the capacity to collect 53,000 barrels a day.