AmericasEnvironmentOffshore

Size of last week’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill revised upwards to 16,000 barrels

The US Coast Guard (USCG) on Thursday said that initial estimates of the size of last week’s major oil spill southeast of Venice, Louisiana, should be revised upwards to almost double the early amounts.

Originally offshore oil and gas operator LLOG Exploration Offshore said that the leak from a flow line jumper of its Delta House floating production facility was somewhere between 7,950 and 9,350 barrels.

Now the USCG – which has coordinated response to the spill with LLOG, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) – says the amount is around 16,000 barrels.

The leak came from a fracture in the line linking a well at Mississippi Canyon Block 209 to a manifold on the seafloor.

It began on Wednesday October 11 and was sealed by the next day.

The spill is the worst in US waters since the all-time worst Deepwater Horizon disaster of 2010, also in the Gulf of Mexico.

Donal Scully

With 28 years experience writing and editing for newspapers in the UK and Hong Kong, Donal is now based in California from where he covers the Americas for Splash as well as ensuring the site is loaded through the Western Hemisphere timezone.
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