Quest Continues for Location of Significant Pipeline Leak After 1 Million Gallons of Oil Spill Into Gulf of Mexico
The scale of the spill is significant, accounting for 3% of crude oil production in the Gulf of Mexico.
While everyone was enjoying the Thanksgiving weekend, the US Coast Guard officials began monitoring a large crude oil release discovered several miles off the Louisiana coast last week.
The slick was spotted last Thursday in the Gulf of Mexico along the Main Pass Oil Gathering [MPOG] pipeline system close to Plaquemines Parish, southeast of New Orleans, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. Officials estimated as much as 1.1 million gallons could have been released.
The 67-mile pipeline was shut down Thursday morning. The Coast Guard has conducted daily monitoring flights over the oil slick while two Coast Guard Cutters and drones monitor the situation near the water’s surface.
On Friday, observation teams saw visible oil moving southwest away from the Louisiana shore as three skimming boats worked to recover oil on the surface.
On Saturday and Sunday, flight crews observed intermittent surface sheens, the Coast Guard said. By Wednesday, overflights hadn’t observed any new visible sheen.
Main Pass Oil Gathering Company, LLC is a wholly owned subsidiary of Third Coast.
The scale of the spill is significant, accounting for 3% of crude oil production in the Gulf of Mexico.
Around 61,165 barrels of daily oil output from at least six producers, making up about 3% of crude oil production in the Gulf of Mexico, has been shut in by Third Coast Infrastructure’s underwater pipeline leak, the U.S. Coast Guard said on Wednesday.
The oil producers whose facilities are impacted include W&T Energy VI (WTI.N), Occidental Petroleum (OXY.N), Walter Oil and Gas, Cantium, Arena Offshore and Talos Energy Ventures (TALO.N), the Coast Guard said, citing the U.S. Interior Department’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.
…Officials said during a press briefing on Tuesday that it had not yet been established whether Third Coast was responsible for the spill, as oil recovery efforts continued.
There were no reported injuries so far, and the waterway remains open to all commercial and recreational vessel traffic, officials added.
As of 3 days ago, there seems to be little impact on the shoreline. However, the spill is still sizeable.
Thanks to rough waters in the Gulf of Mexico, most of the oil appears to have been dissipated and evaporated, U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Kelly Denning said Tuesday during a press conference. “At this time there have been no reports of shoreline impacts.”
Still, early estimates rank the spill among the 10 largest to affect American waters in 40 years of tracking, said Matt Rota, senior policy director at the environmental group Healthy Gulf.
“It’s troubling that they have not identified where the leak has happened,” said Matt Rota, senior policy director at the environmental group Healthy Gulf. “Somebody needs to be held accountable for this.”
Let’s hope they find the source of the leak. Our nation could use all the crude oil it could get after Biden diverted so much of our Strategic Petroleum Reserve to China.
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Comments
The Gulf eats oil, it’s already been established. In fact even without wells the bottom leaks enormous amounts of oil, just not in a single place.
Nature, like God its creator, works in mysterious ways.
Tourists enthusiastically visit oil spills at the La Brea tar pits.
Just in time to impact oil prices yay
Gas is now $2.79 where I live.
Elections are approaching.
Events like this don’t impact oil prices within days, they impact months down the road. I would have thought that to be obvious.
Actually, the markets respond very quickly to news like this.
Both Jeremiah Wright and Putin are smiling this morning. #ChickensComingHomeToRoost #QuidProPipelineQuo
Reporting oil spills in gallons instead of barrels is fear-mongering.