Americas

Home page

Americas

BP oil spill swells 40 nautical miles

08 June 2010 21:26 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. The oil leak from ruptured BP well in the Gulf of Mexico has reached as far as 40 nautical miles away from the crisis zone, with oil inspected at depths of 3,300 feet, APA reports quoting presstv.ir website.

Head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Jane Lubchenco, told journalists on Tuesday that the findings are the result the oil analysis conducted by its scientists.

"NOAA is confirming the presence of very low concentrations of subsurface oil at sampling depths ranging from the surface to 3,300 feet at locations 40 to 42 nautical miles northeast of the well site," she was quoted by AFP as saying.

Lubchenco added authorities have completed a process of "fingerprinting the oil to confirm that it did in fact, come from the BP spill.

"We’ve been tracking where the oil is going at the surface and where it is going below the surface," Lubchenco said. She said the analysis was conducted with experts at the University of South
Florida.

"The BP oil spill is a human tragedy and an environmental disaster," she said.

An independent estimate puts the amount of the crude entering the sea before insertion of a containment cap by British Petroleum at 70,000 barrels daily.

Even after the installment of the cap, the crude is still leaking into the sea, with the BP just capturing 10 to 20 percent of the gushing oil.

Fifty days after an explosion at the Deepwater Horizon rig, which left 11 people dead, oil continues to contaminate the US coastlines from Louisiana to Florida.

Earlier estimations by the scientists suggested that oil could reach Europe and the Arctic.

The BP oil crisis in the Gulf of Mexico has been described the worst environmental disaster in the history of the United States.

The US officials say it will take years to clean up the region.