Shell Leaks in Shabby Style!
Posted by feww on July 29, 2009
Gulf of Mexico Turning into Oil Tailings Pond
The Gulf of Mexico has more utility value as a sewage dump than as body of water for marine life to thrive!
Let’s face it, to the “Real World people” the Gulf of Mexico has more utility value as a sewage dump than as body of water for marine life to thrive. Where else could you bury your oil pipelines, or let the agricultural runoffs flow to, if the Gulf wasn’t there?
Shell and the U.S. Coast Guard are working to contain a few thousand barrels of crude oil that leaked into the Gulf of Mexico from its 50cm diameter pipeline,which is buried about 20m under water.
Shell reportedly discovered the leak Saturday on its Eugene Island oil pipeline, some 50 km off the coast of Louisiana (about 100km southwest of Houma, Louisiana).
“The pipeline has been shut down, halting daily supplies of 100,000 barrels a day of Eugene Island oil. The Eugene Island line also was carrying new oil from Chevron’s Tahiti platform which began flowing in May.” Reuters reported.
“The oil spill was among the largest in recent years in U.S. waters, officials said. Helicopters and airplanes that flew over the spill viewed a 16-by-3-mile “rainbow-like” oil sheen, Coast Guard Petty Officer Tom Atkeson said.”
Saturday’s oil spill is compared to a November 2007 bunker fuel spill into the San Francisco Bay that contaminated the local beaches and drew sharp protests from the locals and environmentalists.
“Shell had no estimate on repairs or a target date for restart of the 20-inch diameter pipeline, but people knowledgeable about operations said fixing it in 60-foot-deep water could take a day if the problem is small to weeks if it is big. Restart requires government approval.” The report said
“At this time, we cannot forecast when restart will occur. Our top priorities during the response and restart phases are safety and the environment,” a company spokesman said.
Shell owns a large stake in the pipeline as its operator, with other majors stakeholders being ExxonMobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips and Marathon.
Axis of Pollution: ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, Chevron , ConocoPhillips, Marathon …
Late Print:
As if to prove us right, the U.S. District Court in Washington has just said “it will allow the U.S. Interior Department to move forward with oil and natural gas leasing plans for the Gulf of Mexico that were drawn up by the Bush administration.”
The court said, “leasing plans for the Gulf could continue, as could drilling off Alaska, but the department would have to conduct a review of the environmental risks before approving significant energy development activities.” Reuters reported.
“Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he was pleased [jumping with joy] with the court’s decision and will go forward with a Gulf of Mexico lease sale planned for August 19.”
Salazar said:
President Obama has made clear that a comprehensive energy plan that reduces America’s dependence on foreign oil must include domestic production, and the Court’s ruling allows us to move forward in a balanced way.
The American Petroleum Institute, which sued to allow drilling in the Gulf to continue, said:
The court made the right decision by allowing the continued production of oil and natural gas from Gulf of Mexico,” . “The nation’s energy security depends upon these resources.
Meanwhile, Caroline Cannon, president of a native Alaskan village who sued to block Bush administration’s five-year (2007 to 2012) offshore oil and gas drilling plan, said:
This drilling plan and the associated seismic testing, increases in vessel traffic, proposed large onshore and offshore infrastructure projects, and projections of oil spills in our unindustrialized homelands is extremely stressful.
But who said anyone was going to buy that truth stuff?
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