BP's Dispersants Thwart Massive Skimming Ship

by Anne Landman — July 19, 2010 - 4:04pm
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Nobu Su, the wealthy owner of TNT shipping, had a great idea: convert a supertanker into a giant skimming vessel that can suck up oily sea water, siphon off the oil and put the clean water back into the ocean. The shipping mogul, whose net worth is ten figures, did exactly that, spending $160 million right after the April 20th explosion of the Deepwater Horizon to convert a supertanker into the world's largest oil skimming vessel. The 10-story tall ship, dubbed "A Whale," can process 21 million gallons of oily water a day, close to the 28 million gallons processed over the last two and a half months by 500 smaller skimmers in the Gulf of Mexico. After its retrofit, Su dispatched the giant ship to the Gulf of Mexico to help with the BP oil disaster, hired the law firm of Bracewell & Giuliani to negotiate federal contracts and launched a media blitz to drum up public support for using the ship. The blitz worked, and the Coast Guard and Environmental Protection Agency agreed to test A Whale's effectiveness at cleaning Gulf sea water. Gulf coast residents had high hopes for the vessel's effectiveness, but the project was dumped after tests showed the ship was inefficient at sucking up oil from Gulf waters. Why did it fail? Because BP's high-volume use of chemical dispersants, added at the point where oil exited the gusher, has rendered the oil in the water too dispersed for the Taiwanese supertanker to process it.

Main Source: 
New Orleans Times Picayune (Nola.com), July 16, 2010

Comments

Comment

Submitted by Male Desire (not verified) on July 27, 2010 - 12:56pm.

he amount of mistakes BP has made concerning this event is nothing short of criminal. Everybody knows and accecpts the chances of an oil spill, but we also expect the "people in charge" to know how to deal with one when it happens.

From the start, BP has

Submitted by davtim (not verified) on July 24, 2010 - 5:51pm.

From the start, BP has proven to be inept, uncaring and selfish. Apart from the uncountable lives (animal, plant and and human) that it has already destroyed with the millions of gallons of oil it has already spewed in to the Gulf, one can only imagine what long term ills and numbers of dead lie ahead through their over use of even more chemicals to help solve their problems.

The Gulf's already dead, whether their cap continues to work or not. Let's hope BP's clean-up efforts don't make things even worse for us, 50 years down the line!

Wow - 160 Millions of his

Submitted by AndyAsteroid (not verified) on July 22, 2010 - 4:29am.

Wow - 160 Millions of his own money and BP still messes up everything. The more I read about this disaster the more I'm disgusted.

BP's Dispersants

Submitted by Brad Kaz (not verified) on July 21, 2010 - 6:14pm.

The amount of mistakes BP has made concerning this event is nothing short of criminal. Everybody knows and accecpts the chances of an oil spill, but we also expect the "people in charge" to know how to deal with one when it happens. I for one would like to look on the positive side of this and hope that in the future this vessel is dispersed quickly and efficiantly.

Help Us With the Bankster Scorecard

Submitted by Cox Alak (not verified) on July 20, 2010 - 2:11am.

Even given that most economists seem to agree that the legislation doesn't go far enough in addressing root causes of the current recession, it still goes some way to re-introducing important reforms. The fight is still ahead. As many have noted, including Paul Volcker in yesterday's New York Times and William Greider in a recent Nation editorial, much of the success of this bill will be in its implementation. Moreover, as Greider details, "it will be a stronger bill than either the White House or the bankers had intended, thanks to public anger, popular mobilization and nimble pressure from reformers."