Saratoga A - GOM Oil Leak Going Since 2004 - Puts Out 100-900X As Much As Owners Claim
A record 14-year-old oil leak off the coast of Louisiana is not releasing as much crude into the Gulf of Mexico as recent estimates suggest, but it's still spewing between 100 and 900 times more than claimed by the company involved in the incident, a study from NOAA and the Department of Commerce found yesterday.
Taylor Energy Co. LLC's oil platform, Saratoga A, fell during Hurricane Ivan in 2004. Extreme waves caused a subsurface mudslide at Mississippi Canyon 20 in the Gulf where the platform sat in more than 400 feet of water. The structure toppled and dragged to the south, snapping and then burying in sediment the cluster of 28 pipes drilled to carry oil to the surface. The company became the responsible party for cleanup, decommissioning and monitoring, a role it held for nearly 15 years.
Oil and gas plumes have been leaking to the ocean's surface from the site ever since, and according to the recent report from NOAA's National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science, oil is flowing at a rate of between 378 to 4,536 gallons per day. The event is the longest continuous oil spill in U.S. history, according to one of the report authors.
Earlier this year, some estimated the spill was releasing between 2,100 and 71,400 gallons of oil per day. At the worst end of that spectrum, the Taylor spill would have had a greater overall impact than the infamous Deepwater Horizon spill of 2010. Taylor has estimated as little as 3 to 5 gallons per day.
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https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2019/06/25/stories/1060652095