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Nearly 3/4 of BP spill oil gone from Gulf
“The fact that the oil is now being contained, that the cap is working, that the mud worked, that we can see the relief well coming into its final stages, and that the amount of oil that has already been collected – if you will, the vast majority of it’s been collected – I think this is encouraging news,”
- Carol Browner, the White House’s top energy adviser
About three-quarters of the oil spilled following the BP explosion in the Gulf of Mexico has evaporated and the rest is being dispersed, the White House said on Wednesday, as it released a new report suggesting that the environmental damage would be nowhere near as severe as first feared.
The study, led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, finds that about a quarter of the 4.9m barrels of oil spilled is still in the water but, whether on the surface or underneath, it appears to be rapidly breaking up.
With the report coinciding with the news that BP’s announcement that its “static kill” operation had appeared to stem the leak, President Barack Obama on Wednesday sounded his most upbeat note yet about the oil spill.