An oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last week may be the largest in the U.S. since the 2010 blowout at BP’s Macondo well that sank the Deepwater Horizon rig and killed 11 people, Bloomberg reports.
Between 7,950 and 9,350 barrels of oil were released on Oct. 11-12 from a subsea infrastructure operated by LLOG Exploration about 40 miles southeast of Venice, according to the company and the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.
That would make the oil spill the largest in more than seven years—even though it’s a fraction of the millions of barrels spilled in the 2010 incident, BSEE data show.
The LLOG spill was triggered by a fracture in a flowline jumper located on the seafloor, the company’s vice president for deepwater projects says.
“The oil had time to dissipate before it could cause lots of damage,” says Edward Overton, an emeritus professor in LSU’s Environmental Sciences Department. “I’m sure there’s some impact associated with this spill out in the deep water, but I don’t think there was enough for the oil to sink.”
