Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell and two other oil companies will spend $1 billion to research and build a containment system to handle deep-water oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico.
Exxon, Shell, Chevron and ConocoPhilips will each give $250 million to establish a non-profit organisation, the Marine Well Containment Co, to produce and manage the equipment. The system will be designed and built over the next 12 to 18 months to handle spills of 100,000 barrels a day in waters as deep as 3,048 metres, the companies said.
The oil industry has been criticised by lawmakers in the US for being unprepared to deal with deep-water accidents, following the explosion of BP’s Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20. The blast killed 11 people, caused the worst oil spill in US history and resulted in a six-month ban on deepwater drilling in the Gulf.
“For an incident in deeper waters with higher production levels, the response capability of containment and spill response is proven by this incident to be inadequate,” Jim Mulva, CEO of ConocoPhillips, said in a phone interview. The four companies have been working with the US government for six weeks on the project.
Gulf storm threatens efforts to plug spill
BP oil spill workers in the Gulf of Mexico prepared for a possible evacuation on Thursday as a brewing tropical storm threatened more delays in efforts to end the biggest environmental disaster in US history.
Some oil-skimming vessels came ashore as Gulf seas grew more choppy, and US officials evaluated the growing threat from a tropical storm forming in the Caribbean.
