Sunday, September 05, 2021

Gulf Pipeline Breaks

Apparently more damage from hurricane Ida is the leaking undersea pipeline in the Gulf of Mexico owned by Talos Energy. The US Coast Guard said that clean up crews are responding to the spill. So far the crude oil slick which is ten miles long has not reached the devasted Louisiana coastline. The spill is ongoing, with no reported date for plugging the leak. The spill was spotted from space on Thursday. [photo credit: Planet Labs]

Hurricane Ida hit Port Fourchon, Lousianna hard. The port is a hub for the offshore oil industry and is dense with industry infrastructure that is vulnerable to storms like Ida. The damaged pipeline is out of use and has not been decommissioned. A report published earlier this year by the GAO said that federal regulators which control use of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) have allowed producers to leave 18,000 miles of pipe on the seafloor, many of which are abandoned without decommissioning. In 2004, Hurricane Ivan destroyed an oil platform about 10 miles off the Louisiana coast. It triggered what is still the longest oil spill in United States history.