That is 5,000 barrels of oil a day or 220,000 barrels of oil in the 44 days that the well has been leaking. At a weighted price per barrel of around $70 (it's gone down to the mid-$60s and up to the mid-$70s in that time), that's $15.4 million worth of oil that has just leaked into the Gulf.

BP had initially said it was only 1,000 barrels a day leaking into the ocean, and environmental activists are talking about amounts that are just not possible, even if the well were bigger than it is and the pressure were greater than it is.

However, the lost revenue is just a drop in the bucket (pun intended) compared to the massive, massive cost of the cleanup, which will almost certainly top $1 billion.

Of course, the government's estimate is oddly convenient. There are 42 gallons to the barrel, and so 210,000 gallons becomes 5000 barrels exactly. For you European types, the number of barrels in a metric ton will vary based on the density of the oil, but a rule of thumb in the industry is 7.3 barrels to the metric ton, so that's still about 685 metric tons of oil leaking into the Gulf every day.