Envisat ASAR satellite radar image showing large slick (outlined in yellow) from major oil spill  off Niger Delta.  Image courtesy European Space Agency.

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Royal Dutch Shell’s Nigerian drilling operations in the highly productive Bonga Field were officially brought to a halt yesterday after “less than 40,000 barrels of oil” (1.7 million gallons) were reportedly leaked during a transfer of crude to a tanker. We’ve just processed a radar satellite image taken this morning (December 21, 2011) of the field, with the spill clearly visible.  Here it is showing the slick outlined in yellow; it is about 70 km (45 miles) long, 17 km (10 miles) wide at it’s widest, and covers 923 square kilometers (356 square miles) of ocean:

NOW DON’T TELL ME THIS WON’T HAPPEN HERE……………….

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JUST LIKE IT HAPPENED HERE——– AT CAMPOS off the coast of Brazil.

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The most recent image we were able to get that wasn’t cloud-covered is from November 12, 2011.  It shows an apparent oil slick originating from the drilling location   and extending over 2,379 square kilometers (the south end of the slick   gets entrained in an interesting clockwise eddy in the ocean currents).    At 1 micron thickness, that’s a volume of 628,000 gallons (14,954   barrels) of oil

http://www.skytruth.org/

AND HERE IN THE GULF of MEXICO JUST A YEAR AGO———–THERE IS AN AMAZING “INTERACTIVE” MAP OF THE GULF SPILL HERE ; http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/05/01/us/20100501-oil-spill-tracker.html  4,100,000 barrels of oil.

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Map of the length of time oil was in the Gulf. The lightest orange indicates 1-3 weeks coverage; the darkest is 16-18 weeks. Image: European Space Agency

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