Giant Oil Slick News

According to a May 2 report from Reuters, the government said on May 1 that two offshore production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico were shut as a safety precaution, the first sign that the giant oil slick was affecting the region's energy production. But analysts said the location of the spill was well east and north of the heart of the region's oil and gas production, which accounts for about 15 percent of U.S. natural gas supply and 25 percent of crude oil output. (Source: Reuters)

A giant oil slick from the sunken tanker Erika drifted and widened off the northwestern French coast on Dec. 14, and officials worry that changing winds could push it towards land. A spokesman for maritime authorities said the slick from the broken up tanker Erika, estimated at 9,000 to 10,000 tons of viscous fuel oil, was extending as it absorbed seawater. Officials insisted that ecological disaster cannot be ruled out on the Brittany coast, where the Amoco Cadiz spilled over one million barrels of oil in 1978. The oil slick was some 25 nautical miles south off the tourist island of Belle-Ile, itself about 16 nautical miles south of Brittany's Finistere Peninsula, and drifting eastwards at .6 mph.