Oil Slick from Rig Collapse in Gulf of Mexico Seen from Space

livescience.com Yahoo News 26 Apr 10;

The oil slick that is expanding from the site of an oil rig collapse last week has been spotted from space by a NASA satellite.

An estimated 42,000 gallons of oil per day are leaking from an oil well in the Gulf of Mexico after an oil rig caught fire and then sank into the ocean waters last week.

The oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico that resulted from the explosion and collapse of an oil rig can be seen in this image from NASA's Aqua satellite. At left is the Mississippi Delta. The slick is the lighter colored area in the lower right. Credit: MODIS Rapid Response Team

The only oil evident in the water at first was that which had been on the rig itself at the time it exploded on April 20. Over the weekend, officials working on the oil spill discovered that water was also leaking from the pipe that led up to the rig from the well some 5,000 feet (1,524 meters) below on the seafloor.

NASA's Aqua satellite took a photograph of the affected area on Sunday, April 25, in which the oil slick - which currently covers an area 48 miles long (77 kilometers) and 39 miles wide (63 km), according to news reports - can be seen.

The Mississippi Delta is the center of the image, and the oil slick is a silvery swirl in the lower right. The oil slick may be particularly obvious because it is occurring in the sunlit area, where the mirror-like reflection of the sun off the water gives the Gulf of Mexico a washed-out look.

The slick may contain dispersants or other chemicals that emergency responders are using to control the spread of the oil, and it is unknown how much of the 700,000 gallons of fuel that were on the oil rig burned in the fire and how much may have spilled into the water when the platform sank.

An emergency response effort is underway to stop the flow of oil and contain the existing slick before it reaches wildlife refuges and beaches in Louisiana and Mississippi.

Gulf of Mexico oilspill spreads as well leaks
Bruce Nichols, Reuters 26 Apr 10;

HOUSTON (Reuters) - An oil spill from a leaking underwater well grew to cover 1,900 square miles of the Gulf of Mexico on Monday as the U.S. Coast Guard scrambled to keep the slick from reaching the fragile Gulf Coast shoreline.

Green Business | Mexico

The well, 5,000 feet under the ocean surface off Louisiana's coast, is leaking about 1,000 barrels of oil a day. The spill, which the U.S. Coast Guard has called "very serious," has put the coasts of Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi and Florida on alert for potential oil contamination.

Swiss-based Transocean Ltd's Deepwater Horizon sank on April 22, two days after it exploded and caught fire while finishing a well for BP Plc about 40 miles southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River.

As of Monday afternoon, there were no impacts to the shore and the spill remained about 30 miles off the Louisiana coast at least three days from landfall, said Coast Guard Rear Admiral Mary Landry.

Wildlife impact was said to be minimal. An aircrew from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Sunday spotted three sperm whales near the spill but they did not appear affected, officials said.

The incident casts a pall over the oil industry's push for access to more offshore acreage in Alaska, the Gulf of Mexico and along the East Coast, and comes just weeks after President Barack Obama unveiled plans for a limited expansion of U.S. offshore oil and gas drilling.

In an attempt at a quick fix, U.S. agencies this weekend deployed four remotely operated underwater vehicles to dive unmanned to the ocean floor to try to activate a balky blowout preventer, a 450-ton tangle of pipes and valves that usually works automatically.

If that plan fails, London-based BP, which owns the oil well and is financially responsible for the cleanup, will have to drill one or more relief wells into the damaged well bore under the seabed to intercept the flow.

The drilling effort could take several months, and BP is pursuing an interim plan to build as many as two dome-shaped covers to place over the well that could capture oil and pipe it to the surface before it can add to the spill. That could be done in two to four weeks, officials estimated.

"This is state-of-the-art technology," said Doug Suttles, chief operating officer of BP's exploration and production unit. Such containment and removal systems have been used in shallower waters but never at such depths.

Eleven workers from the rig are missing and presumed dead in what is the worst oil rig disaster in almost a decade. The Coast Guard on Friday suspended a search for the workers.

The spill is not comparable with the infamous Exxon Valdez disaster, which spilled about 11 million gallons (50 million liters) of oil into the Prince William Sound in Alaska when it ran aground in 1989. BP's well is spewing about 42,000 gallons (190,900 liters) of oil a day into the ocean, the Coast Guard estimates.

Tony Hayward, chief executive of London-based BP -- which is financially responsible for the clean-up -- traveled to the area over the weekend to oversee operations and meet with the governors of Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi.

Stormy weather over the weekend hampered cleanup efforts for BP, which has deployed an armada of ships and aircraft to contain the oil slick. In a statement, Hayward on Monday said BP was accelerating cleanup as the weather improved.

"The improved weather has created better conditions for our response," Hayward said. "This, combined with the light, thin oil we are dealing with has further increased our confidence that we can tackle this spill offshore."

BP's shares fell 2 percent on Monday on fears that the spill could lead to a big financial hit. BP has not given a detailed accounting of spending or potential liability to date.

Transocean's Chief Executive Steven Newman also traveled from Switzerland to Louisiana to support the effort.

Transocean said its insurance covers the total loss of the Deepwater Horizon and wreck removal, and that the rig has an insured value of $560 million.

The explosion occurred as the rig was capping a discovery well pending production, company officials said. Some 115 of the 126 workers on board at the time of the explosion were rescued.

(Writing by Chris Baltimore; Editing by David Gregorio)