When we think of oil spills we tend to think of large slicks in the ocean, killing seabirds and damaging marine ecosystems. Following BP's Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico back in 2010, and Chevron's spill off the coast of Brazil in 2011, there has been a lot of focus on oil spills and there prevention. Companies are looking into more efficient and quicker ways of containing oil spills in the ocean, and more effective ways of extracting the oil from the water. New regulations are being introduced to increase safety, and new technologies are being developed that are more reliable.
So it seems odd to me that 80,000 gallons of crude oil managed to spill from a pipeline in rural Louisiana without anyone really noticing.
Exxon Mobil Corp. announced that on Saturday night they had to shut down the 22-inch pipeline that carries crude oil from St. James Parish, southeast of Baton Rouge, to northern Louisiana, due to a loss of pressure. And that on Sunday the 80,000 gallons of crude were discovered in Pointe Coupee Parish, northwest of Baton Rouge.
The federal regulators have been informed and the clean-up is being coordinated with the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality.
Exxon say that they have no idea how the pipeline broke causing the spill, but that no injuries occurred. They have deployed vacuum trucks to clean up the area, and a team are closely monitoring the air quality for signs of pollution.
By. James Burgess of Oilprice.com
James Burgess studied Business Management at the University of Nottingham. He has worked in property development, chartered surveying, marketing, law, and accounts. He has also… More
Comments
By Dwight Baker
Dbaker22@stx.rr.com
May 1, 2012
Rex Tillerson CEO Exxon Mobil hides behind the Rich Culture scenes in Dallas, he has a staff that answers to him but what they do WHO KNOWS.
That is the same set of things that go on in Big Oil today. NO BODY KNOWS.
Inspections were not done if so the PIGS run would have found the weakest links in the pipeline. But typically Big Oil waits as long as they can before taking care of US and our Fragile environment.
And on another dark side of how Big Oil does business they buy off the potential whistle blowers at first tweet. And as is known all over the world system Big Oil buys off local state and some federal elected and appointed officials to look the other way and say OH HUM.
Last we should never forget the origins of the Big Oil guys today. John D. Rockefeller was their founding father and for any one to blindly think that David Rockefeller sits in his 3500 acre Armed Estate playing with grandkids all day are just stupefied. He put in all the Big Oil guys today and he takes them out when done with them, some might get a Golden Parachute will others might get a Parachute that does not open.