New, Gigantic Oil Skimmer Help Out in Gulf of Mexico

This is not the oil tanker converted to a skimmer. But illustrates the scale of the skimmer.

The cleanup crews working around the clock in the Gulf of Mexico to clean up the BP oil disaster may receive a reprieve if all goes well if the weekend tests of a new oil skimmer go according to plan.

This Taiwanese oil skimmer has been aptly dubbed “A Whale”, as it consists of 12 vents which are designed to collect up to 500,000 barrels of oily water a day. This “Whale” is described as being one of the biggest oil skimmers in the entire world, and has been showing off its capabilities since last Saturday. It is being tested just north of the Macondo Deepwater well.

The oil skimmer was set to cruise a 25-square-mile test site, through to yesterday. TMT shipping is credited with the creation, turning an out of service oil tanker into the oil skimming monster

The jury is still out however, and the U.S. Coast Guard, along with BP, are holding their collective breaths will live up to the claims, and be able to clean up to 21 million gallons of oily water a day. By all means it should live up to the claims, it is 10 stories high, is as long as four city blocks, and has 12 vents to separate the oil from the contaminated water, and re-pump it back into the Gulf of Mexico.

Bob Grantham, spokesman for TMT, had this to say in an e-mail “In many ways, the ship collects water like an actual whale and pumps internally like a human heart.”

A Whale is being put to the test close to the epicenter of the disaster as officials believe that it will be more effective on those areas where the oil is at its thickest, rather than where the oil is thinner, closer to the shoreline.

The monster oil skimmer made an appearance in the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday, however officials have been holding off on its use, until its capabilities have been tested, and the federal Environmental Protection Agency has a chance to confirm that the water it will be pumping back into the Gulf of Mexico is truly clean and properly processed. While it won’t get rid of all of the oil, there are still certain standards it needs to meet before it can be put to work.

The long wait time has really frustrated some of the local officials on the scene, as this giant oil skimmer might just be the ticket to preventing the oil from making its ways to the vulnerable coastlines.

Governor Bobby Jindal is one of those officials that is tired of waiting to get A Whale into the game, “They’ve used the war rhetoric, if this is really a war, they need to be using every resource that makes sense to fight this oil before it comes to our coast.”

Let us hope that A Whale performs as promised, and we can finally make a dent in this humongous problem which faces the Gulf of Mexico.