Gulf Coast Oil Spill May Be Largest Since 2010 BP Disaster [View all]

[Rhiannon12866]

LLOG reports as much as 9,350 barrels spilled last week

Release dwarfed by multimillion-barrel Deepwater Horizon spill

An oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last week may be the largest in the U.S. since the 2010 blowout at BP Plc’s Macondo well that sank the Deepwater Horizon rig and killed 11 people.

LLOG Exploration Co. reported 7,950 to 9,350 barrels of oil were released Oct. 11 to Oct. 12 from subsea infrastructure about 40 miles (64 kilometers) southeast of Venice, Louisiana, according to the company and the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement. That would make it the largest spill in more than seven years, BSEE data show, even though it’s a fraction of the millions of barrels ejected in the 2010 incident.

“Way offshore, the oil had time to dissipate before it could cause lots of damage,” Edward Overton, emeritus professor in the Environmental Sciences Department at Louisiana State University, said by telephone. “I’m sure there’s some impact associated with this spill out in the deep water, but I don’t think there was enough for the oil to sink.”

The LLOG spill was triggered by a fracture in a flowline jumper located on the sea floor, Rick Fowler, the company’s vice president for deepwater projects, said in an email Tuesday. That’s a short pipeline used to connect a well to nearby subsea structures. Multiple barriers placed on either side of the fracture stopped the release, but the the flowline jumper hadn’t yet been repaired, he said.


More: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-16/gulf-of-mexico-oil-spill-may-be-largest-since-2010-bp-disaster