PLAQUEMINES PARISH, La. — A pipeline on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico has been leaking for two days, the U.S. Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported.
The leak was first spotted Thursday morning 19 miles east of the mouth of Main Pass and reported by the pipeline owner, Main Pass Oil Gathering Company, a subsidiary of Third Coast, a Houston oil company. Satellite images viewed by WWL Investigates show the slick moved southwest on Friday, toward the mouth of South Pass.
MPOG shut in a 66-mile segment of its pipeline system at 6 a.m. Thursday. That portion of the pipeline runs from east to west to connect Gulf oil fields with coastal pipelines at the mouth of Main Pass. MPOG's pipeline system carries 80,000 barrels of oil per day from offshore wells to the coast and was just completed in August 2022.
The Coast Guard set up a command center and a Joint Incident Command in Belle Chasse, to work with other government agencies, including NOAA, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, and the Louisiana Oil Spill Coordinator, along with the responsible company, MPOG.
The pipeline is no longer actively leaking, but the Coast Guard said the current best estimate, based on gauges on the leaking Gulf oil pipeline recorded 27,000 barrels or 1.1 million gallons of oil are missing.
However, multiple overflights of the oil slick on Friday had shown that the surface sheen contained 291 barrels, or 12,222 gallons, of oil.
Officials say there is no projected landfall of oil within the next 48 hours, but Clean Gulf Associates is sending three 95-foot skimmers to the location to collect the oil on the surface.
► Get breaking news from your neighborhood delivered directly to you by downloading the new FREE WWL-TV News app now in the IOS App Store or Google Play.