The U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement has reported that 2100 barrels (333 900 litres) of crude oil has been released from a the Shell-operated Brutus Platform, located 156 km off the coast of Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico. The oil has reportedly formed a slick 21 km in length and 3 km in width, and was first spotted by a Shell helicopter pilot, leading to operations on the platform to be halted while the cause of the leak is identified and repaired.
Oil slick off the coast of Louisiana. Rick Wilkin/Reuters.
The Brutus Platform is a processing rig receiving oil from other platforms on the Glider Oil Field and piping it to onshore facilities. This means that it is easily shut down following an incident of this kind, unlike a drilling rig which can release oil after a complete shutdown if pressure from buried oil deposits continues to force it up pipelines. However this does mean that production of oil from the Glider Field is likely to have to be severely curtailed while the problem is dealt with.
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