We have known since the well was capped that there were still oil and gas bubbles leaking from Macando 252. Several ships, including the Development Driller 3 have been reported in the area of the wellhead in recent days. Now there may be a reason for the attention, but it may not be Macando. There may be another leaky deepwater rig in the Gulf.
Possible oil sheen under investigation in Gulf of Mexico could be large.
The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports that the Coast Guard is investigating.
A helicopter crew and pollution investigators have been dispatched to Main Pass Block 41 in response to two calls to the National Response Center, the federal point of contact for reporting oil and chemical spills, said Paul Barnard, an operations controller for Coast Guard Sector New Orleans.
The first caller, around 11 a.m., described a sheen of about a half-mile long and a half-mile wide, he said.
About two hours later, another caller reported a much larger sheen -- about 100 miles long -- originating in the same area and spreading west to Cocodrie on Terrebonne Bay, Barnard said.
"We haven't been able to verify that, and it would be very unlikely for an individual to be able to observe a 100-mile long sheen," he said, adding inspection teams were en route around 3 p.m. to the site.
Eileen Angelico of the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy, Management, Regulation and Enforcement, which oversees offshore oil and natural gas production, said late Saturday afternoon that her agency was awaiting Coast Guard confirmation of the nature of the sheen. The bureau had not received word from any operators in the gulf of a spill, she said.
Business Insider reports that the sheen is connected to the deepwater rig Matterhorn Seastar owned by W&T Offshore. W&T Offshore's stock fell like a rock before close of business Friday, which may add some creedence to the possibility that they have a serious problem.
Independent pilots, including John Wathen of the Waterkeeper Alliance, and Bonnie Schumaker with Wings of Care, are currently flying out to investigate the spill. Schumaker reports having seen the sheen on Friday, March 18, and confirms that it is rapidly expanding.
A Louisiana fisherman, who has chosen to remain anonymous at this time, also reports fresh oil coming ashore near South Pass, LA, and that cleanup crews are laying new boom near the beach.
The Coast Guard Cutter Pompano has been sent to the scene to gather a sample, but Petty Officer Casey Ranel said late Saturday it wasn’t clear if the ship would be able to complete its work in the dark.
According to FuelFix, information on Saturday seem to indicate the spill is beginning in a different area, however - the block known as Mississippi Canyon 243. That’s the location of the Matternhorn platform, which serves a tie-in for a number of different fields in the area.
Calls to Matterhorn’s operator, W&T Offshore, were not returned as of Saturday night.
Mississippi Canyon 243, lies 30 miles from the Louisiana coastline. The Matterhorn field, at a depth of 2,789 feet (850 meters) of water, was discovered in 1999, leased and permitted in July 2001, and came into production in November 2003. It is located 30 miles SE of the mouth of the Mississippi River.
According to W&T, the field has produced an average rate of 5,200 barrels of oil per day, and has production capacities of 35,000 barrels of oil per day.
But before we set our hair on fire and run around screaming and shouting, check this story from UPI in January, that never made it to anyone's headlines, apparently... A search for "oil sheen in Gulf" on the Times-Picayune website returns 1160 hits going back several years.
(January 19, 2011) Oil sheen seen in Gulf of Mexico. U.S. energy company Apache Corp. said it sent an underwater robot to an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico to find the source of a "disturbance."
Apache said it started work to plug a well at its East Cameron block oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico during the weekend after workers spotted bubbling on the surface of the water near the platform. An oil sheen was observed Monday, the company said.
The company said it dispatched a remotely operated vehicle to the area to identify what it described as a "water disturbance." Apache added that, as of Tuesday, no sheen or other evidence of hydrocarbons were visible.
Before anyone flames me for not screaming enough, my track record with Gulf Watchers is obvious. I am under no circumstances a shill for big oil (I left the field of geology because I could not work with the "drill, baby, drill" attitude) and am a fierce advocate of getting the entire planet off fossil fuels as soon as possible. I want more information on this "spill". Now. I want the TRUTH. NOW. But whatever you would like to believe, we are now hyperaware to any trace of oil where it should not be. Having said that, although oil on the surface (and under the surface) of the ocean is not a good thing, ever, small spills will occur with drilling, and can do major environmental damage. Small ones can usually be dealt with through skimming and natural processes. Large ones, however, should never happen. This particular incident may be eventually prove to be really bad, or it may be a minor problem that should be corrected immediately - and another example of lax, greed-driven drilling.
Update...The sheen/spill could be from dredging.If the dredged material contained settled hydrocarbons, which is most likely, that could account for the oil-like sheen.
Update x2...this may be two separate incidents...oil on beach and booming is one, the "sheen/slick" a second, unrelated incident. From the New Orleans Times-Picayune:
Oil was released into the Gulf of Mexico south of Grand Isle for four to six hours Saturday, the apparent source of oil that washed ashore on Louisiana beaches Sunday, a Jefferson Parish Council member said.
The source of the leak has been secured, Councilman Chris Roberts said in an email.
On Saturday, the Coast Guard received varying reports detailing a sheen between three and 100 miles long, starting about six miles off the coast of Grand Isle. However, the Guard apparently is investigating that as a separate incident.
The Coast Guard had investigated the sheen by sending out a cutter to collect samples, Coast Guard spokeswoman Casey Ranel said.
The Coast Guard said the samples contained "only trace amounts of petroleum hydrocarbons, oil and grease."
The Coast Guard said "the dark substance (in the Gulf) is believed to be caused by a tremendous amount of sediment being carried down the Mississippi River due to high water, possibly further agitated by dredging operations."
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