BP oil spill: Giant oil skimmer makes stop in Norfolk on way to Gulf cleanup
BP oil spill: Giant oil skimmer makes stop in Norfolk on way to Gulf cleanup
The six opening's(Six on both sides of the vessel, 12 opening's in all) near the bow of the vessel that pulls in the oil"A Whale", is billed as the largest oil skimmer vessel in the world docked at Norfolk International Terminal for today before sailing to the Gulf area this afternoon. The A Whale is 1115 feet long and 196 feet wide and can hold 1 million barrels of recovered oil. (Joe Fudge, Daily Press / June 24, 2010)
Peter Frost, pfrost@dailypress.com | 247-4744
1:59 p.m. EDT, June 25, 2010
NORFOLK — A giant tanker billed as the world's largest oil skimming vessel will sail Friday to the Gulf of Mexico after a brief stop at the Port of Hampton Roads, with no guarantee it will be allowed to assist in oil-cleanup efforts.
The Taiwanese-owned ship, dubbed the "A Whale," is one of the world's largest supertankers at 1,115 feet in length and a nearly 200 foot beam. It was converted last week at a Portuguese shipyard to skim oil off surface waters.
The six-month-old, Liberian-flagged A Whale is designed to work 20 to 50 miles offshore where other, smaller skimmers have trouble navigating and ingest oily water into 12, 16-foot-long intake vents on both sides of its bow. Its owner, Taiwan-based TMT Group, said the ship has the capacity to capture up to 500,000 barrels of oil-contaminated water a day. The ship is designed to filter out most of the oil from the water in specialized tanks and transfer the oil to other tankers or shore-based facilities. The remaining water would be pumped back into the Gulf.
Company officials said the new skimming method has never been attempted by a vessel of its size.
"We can do in maybe in a day and a half what these other crews have done in 66 days," said Bob Grantham, a project officer for TMT Group based in London. "What we aim to do is to provide the first line of defense of the U.S. coastline. We see the A Whale as adding another layer to the recovery effort."
But, TMT officials said it does not yet have government approval to assist in the cleanup or a contract with BP to perform the work.
That's part of the reason the ship was tied to pier at the Virginia Port Authority's Norfolk International Terminals Friday morning, and the firm and its public-relations agency invited anyone who would listen to an hour-long presentation about how the ship could provide an immediate boost to clean-up efforts in the Gulf.
TMT also paid to fly in Edward Overton, a professor emeritus in the Department of Environmental Sciences at Louisiana State University, to blast the lack of effort and coordination in BP's and the government's oil-spill response and make a plea to the government to allow the A Whale to join the operation.
"We need this ship. We need this help," Overton said. "That oil is already contaminating our shoreline. … Don't take no for an answer; just do it."
The company would need approval from the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Coast Guard and, possibly, a federally granted waiver from a century-old maritime act that restricts foreign-flagged vessels from operating in U.S. waters.
Copyright © 2010, Newport News, Va., Daily Press
Posted by World Watch at 10:11 PM
http://newsessentials.blogspot.com/2010/06/bp-oil-spill-giant-oil-skimmer-makes.html
