Yahoo Finance Biggest since Deepwater Horizon as Talos and Occidental still battling 62,000-barrel mega oil spill
The largest US oil spill since Deepwater Horizon is currently unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico near Louisiana, as energy giants continue battle to protect the environment from disaster.
Occidental Petroleum, W&T Offshore and Talos Energy are among the oil drillers that have ceased offshore production after a subsea pipeline ruptured and leaked around 26,000 barrels of oil into the sea on Thursday last week.
This translates to roughly 1.1m gallons of crude oil.
Authorities were alerted when crude oil was spotted around 19 miles offshore of the Mississippi River delta, southeast of New Orleans.
The cessation of drilling on the 67-mile long pipeline means around 61,165 barrels per day of production will be lost; equivalent to roughly three per cent of oil production in the Gulf of Mexico.
The Coast Guard’s latest update said that to date there had been no impact on wildlife and the shoreline.
However, speaking to Louisiana TV station, WWTV about the current spill, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s emergency operations coordinator Doug Helton said: “There are endangered and threatened species in Louisiana waters. Most of the coastal Louisiana is wetlands and marshes, and that’s typically considered really sensitive to oil,” he said.
“Turtles are probably one of the biggest concerns that we might have,” he added.
According to NOAA, thousands of oil spills occur in US waters every year, but most are small in size and spill less than one barrel.
Since 1969, however, there have been at least 44 oil spills that have released over 10,000 barrels or 420,000 gallons – Deepwater Horizon being the largest at around 4 million barrels across an 87-day period.
In contrast, the last notable oil spill in the UK to receive attention occurred in March in Poole, Dorset.
The leak, from a pipeline operated by gas company Perenco, saw approximately 200 barrels leak from the Wytch Farm oil field into Owers Bay.
