Gulf Oil Sheen Causes Shell Shares To Drop

AMSTERDAM (AP) — Shares in Royal Dutch Shell PLC have fallen more than 4 percent in European trading after the company said a "light sheen" of oil had been seen in the general area of two of its production facilities.

The company says the source of the sheen is unknown and it had "no current indication the sheen originates from wells in either the Mars or Ursa projects" about 130 miles southeast of New Orleans.

Still, shares dropped 4.6 percent to €24.82 in Amsterdam on Thursday. In a statement published on its U.S. website Wednesday, Shell said it sent a response ship to the area "out of prudent caution" and was asking planes in the area to monitor the sheen, which it described as about one mile long and ten miles wide.

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Comments

[Vegasyankee]

06:47 PM on 04/12/2012

"An unmanned, underwater vehicle was surveying plugged undersea oil wells Thursday and looking for natural seepage as authorities sought the source of a 10-mile oil sheen in the Gulf of Mexico off Louisiana, the federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement said. BSEE also said it had instructed operators of pipelines in the area to survey their lines." One full day of scans from a rover and nothing! Gee, is it possible the media jumped to conclusions again?

[traceymarie]

10:16 PM on 04/12/2012

How is seepage from capped wells natural?

[Vegasyankee]

07:12 AM on 04/13/2012

How do you get seepage from a cased in well? 

Did you know there is more natural oil seepage in The Gulf than any other body of water in the world?

[rg9rts]

06:12 PM on 04/12/2012

Didn't Big Oil just reassure us that they had everything under control ? No more spills? No more leaks? No more seepage? The ability to fix anything?? I did see the Easter bunny but not the tooth fairy. Yet.

[Moose Luck 99]

06:10 PM on 04/12/2012

http://www.floridaoilspilllaw.com/this-is-crazy-bp-not-tracing-source-of-new-crude-petroleum-engineers-say-its-possible-oil-is-moving-up-around-the-outside-of-the-sealed-well-pipe/

Ed Overton, LSU chemist who did most of NOAA’s oil analysis during the spill:

“This is crazy. I don’t understand why they are not doing that [using a hydrocarbon sniffer, which can trace oil in the water column from the surface to the seafloor]."
"Whether it is coming from the well itself, or coming from the riser pipe, you can’t say unless you go down there and look.”
“There’s oil coming up. Where is it coming from? Send an ROV with a sniffer down and see if you see anything. As much money as has been spent, go spend a little more instead of denying that there is a problem.”

[Kenz300]

05:55 PM on 04/12/2012

Are oil companies capable of drilling in deep water safely?

Did we learn anything from the BP spill?

Do they have the proper safety and environmental controls?

Have they developed the tools and procedures to prevent spills?

Do we need stronger regulation to enforce safety procedures?

Republicans want to end the EPA. They say let business regulate themselves.

I say it is time to vote all Republicans out of office.

[Vegasyankee]

06:44 PM on 04/12/2012

We have been drilling in The Gulf since the early 1940's.  There have been over 74,000 oil and gas wells drilled since then on the shelf and another 24,500 in the deep waters of The Gulf.  Macando was the first major oil spill in U.S. waters since that time.  We are and have always been heavily regulated by The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, The U.S. Dept. of the Interior, The U.S. Coast Guard, and The American Bureau of Shipping.  Not to mention every company has their own safety criteria that must be adhered to.  There is no alcohol and no drugs out here since all the companies (Thousands) are linked through a computer based program - Fail a test and your career offshore is over.  This has always been one of America's most heavily regulated industries and is one of the safest industries in the nation.

You couldn't learn any of this kind of information reading bias media sources.

[traceymarie]

10:17 PM on 04/12/2012

Are you kidding or just lying

[olitenup]

01:49 PM on 04/12/2012

No, not this outstanding corporate citizen. Yes snark.

And these are the people who want to drill in pristine Alaska.

[WESmith]

01:46 PM on 04/12/2012

Oil sheen seen covering the entire United States caused by We The People!

We were warned 40 years ago that gasoline-powered vehicles were bad for the environment but continue to purchase close to a million a month. We have had alternatives for over a hundred years but inefficient, polluting gasoline vehicles is king.

[WESmith]

02:35 PM on 04/12/2012

We The People spill millions of gallons of oil, gasoline, diesel and antifreeze each and every year on roads made of the same stuff that they want to pump through the Keystone Pipeline. Fortunately, rain washes this sludge into the environment or our roads would be too slick to drive on. Areas of little rain spray water on the roads, followed by sweepers. Be careful during light rains. The roads get slick from our sludge. Motorcyclists. Always be care. Do not drive in the middle of lanes.

[kwaut lizard]

02:51 PM on 04/13/2012

You are such an OIL TROLL. Every post you make is in defense of indefensible behavior by the oil and gas industry or the fracking industry and its law skirting process.

Here you are writing a bunch of unassociated crap in defense of the oil and gas industry which may or may not be for blame with this spill. Public sentiment is not on the side of the industry at the moment, most people are on to the lies and misleading stories that predominantly defend the industry but recognize it as a necessary evil. They simply wish the industry operates more cleanly as the technological demands keep increasing with the publics demand for more.

Yet here you are: We the people spill millions of gallons ....
yet again defending what is totally indefensible behavior.

An educated estimate places
1 gal of oil renders approximately 250,000 gallons of water unpotable

if you have a spill rate of 4 gal a sec you are rendering 1,000,000 gallons of water unpotable every sec which is 60,000,000 million gal every min

So 6 barrels is 252 gallons, that could render 63,000,000 gallons of freshwater unfit for human consumption. Water may very will be more valuable than gas in your lifetime.

[GeorgeP922]

11:25 AM on 04/12/2012

Man TWO ongoing oil spills from deep sea drilling at the same time.

America is ignoring the Total Oil in Scottland.

They will pay attention to this.

You dont get square miles of sheen on open ocean without a major leak.

[annarkey]

05:16 PM on 04/12/2012

There is a reason that the front page story is about the continuing placement of unimportant wasted space and time stories, they do not want Americans to wake up and understand the lack of control that we have in protecting ourselves and our planet. To find articles that speak to the important issues of today, we have to find outside sources and the only way an environmental story carries any importance is when it is to late to stop the disaster. I read the accompanying article about Ecuador, there were no comments and it dealt with the Chevron (Texaco) contamination of the rain forest when they drilled from the early sixties through the nineties. The people will not receive the $18 billion judgement and the spokesperson said that those people are and have always been "irrelevant".

The Gulf has been treated the same way, with residents suffering medical problems as a result of the BP Oil spill. In this case, anyone with a camera whether in a boat or plane was endangered by the oil companies to report this leak. The average person is considered "irrelevant" once they have served a purpose and can be ignored. The message of the government and the corporations that it serves, is that people are "irrelevant" and the funding will stay on hold as people suffer and die.

[Haveissues]

11:05 AM on 04/12/2012

"Sheen" sounds like "oil slick lite". Nothing to see here folks, move along.