So it’s all over the news, almost continuously now for the last 50 or so days; The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is gushing thousands of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico every day. Many details remain unseen, such as how much oil has been lost. Best-case scenario (22,000 barrels a day for 48 days at the time of this publishing) is around 1,056,000 barrels so far. The worst-case scenario (Purdue U’s estimation of 48,500 barrels a day) puts the situation at about 2,328,000 barrels, so far. Also, it is unknown how and when the leak will stop. It is likely that August could come before the relief wells are finished. What is certain, though, is that British Petroleum CEO Tony Hayward is wishing he were anybody other than Tony Hayward right now.

While BP does not own the rig outright (it is being leased out from Transocean to BP until September 2013), BP has primary liability and is responsible for the majority of the costs associated with this accident. So far the company has burned through $1.25 billion ($27 million a day) trying to contain the spill, which is a staggering amount, but relatively miniscule compared to its nearly $30 billion in operating cash flow. With the company’s share price down by a third since the April 20 spill, BP has also been subject to takeover speculation. If you’re looking to buy an oil company right now, BP is certainly on sale.

But the cash lost by BP is definitely not the most depressing part of this situation. By now photographs of marine wildlife covered in oil have been published, and the spill will cause environmental damages that will last for generations (far beyond the end of BP’s financial troubles). It’s ruining beaches, tourism, and other industries dependent on the coast for their survival, particularly in Louisiana which is still working to fully recover from Hurricane Katrina.

We’re also seeing political attacks start from this. Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal (Rep.) is criticizing the White House, complaining that he wants to see more intervention and financial relief from President Obama. After Jindal built a career bashing big government, go figure. Republicans are attempting to paint this as “Obama’s Katrina.” Such notions are of ignorance because, unlike Katrina, which was caused by Mother Nature, this oil spill was caused by BP’s negligence. So, the incident gives the president an easy target to focus blame (and lawsuits) on.

There have been gripes on both sides of the isle that the government should have taken full control of the situation sooner and put BP under conservatorship (a term meaning BP is temporarily under control of the Federal Government).  This is not a surprising reaction from a nation that has recently witnessed mass government bailouts of its largest industries. It’s true that BP is trying to balance its two key interests: stopping the oil leak while simultaneously protecting its bottom line as much as possible.

Odds are BP has more expertise at running an oil company than the federal government. And the government stepping in too soon sets a bad precedent of federal reliance. A month is a decent amount of time to let BP try and fix its own mistake before the government comes in and starts calling all the shots. This oil spill is also likely to create enough political capital to get a sizable energy bill passed in the near future, which could put more focus on renewable energies and ‘green technologies’.

We are beginning to see promising signs of an end, however. BP has recently announced that it is capturing about 11,000 barrels of the spill each day; that’s out of an estimated (likely underestimated) daily spill count of around 20,000 barrels. Though it’s difficult to put a finite number on the spill just yet, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill shadows the Exxon Valdez oil spill, which totaled 272,000 barrels (ranked the 34th largest spill in history).  However, it pales in comparison to the largest spill in history, which happened in Kuwait in 1991 and totaled more than 12 million barrels of oil. Once the final figures come out, this spill will likely be in the top three and it already is the largest in U.S. history.