Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Royal Dutch Shell plc (ADR) has detected 2,100-barrel oil spill in the US Gulf of Mexico that forced the company to shut all of its wells that lead to Brutus platform.

Royal Dutch Shell: Another Oil Spill in Louisiana

  • Oil & Gas
  • By Micheal Kaufman


  • Royal Dutch Shell: Another Oil Spill in Louisiana

    According to the Thomson Reuters, Royal Dutch Shell plc (ADR) has detected 2,100-barrel oil spill in the US Gulf of Mexico that forced the company to shut all of its wells that lead to Brutus platform.


    The regulatory authority, known as US Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), maintained that 3-km by 21-km or 2 miles by 13 miles sheen was clearly visible in the Gulf of Mexico, around 97 miles away from the coast of Louisiana.

    The lustre on the sea is near to Shell’s Gilder field, comprising of four subsea wells, through which the production flows to the Brutus platform. The platform sits in the water with a rough depth of around 884 miles or 2,900 feet.
     
     Shell’s spokeswomen, Curtis Smith released a statement, in which she stated that the sheen was detected by a helicopter, but the wells are now in control and the company has shut its production.

    The Brutus platform has a total capacity of 4.25 million cubic meters of gas per day and 100,000 barrels of oil, and the company initiated its production at the platform in 2001. Shell believes that the sheen on the sea could be visible due to release of oil from subsea infrastructure. However, the company is still determining the exact cause of the leak by inspecting flow -lines and subsea equipment. According to the regulatory authority, there are no injuries to those deployed at the platform.

    The regulatory authority has tightened its policies following the historic BP plc (ADR) (NYSE:BP) oil spill in 2010 that spilled more than 3 million barrels oil in the sea and taking lives of 11 rig workers. In the recent development, British Petroleum finally decided to pay off $1 billion to the affected people of oil spill. In April, last year US Federal Judge, Carl Barbier finalized the $20 billion payment related to the spill.