The US Coast Guard just announced that the "A Whale", a supertanker sent from Taiwan to the Gulf by his adventurous owner, is going home because she was not able to skim any appreciable amounts of the oil, which has leaked for three months by BP's broken well.
The very first images of the ship had already telegraphed that outcome weeks ago. Designing a well performing oil skimming device is much more complex than most people assume. There are many reasons that nobody has yet invented a high capacity oil skimmer that is capable of operating under adverse weather and sea conditions.
Mr. Nobu Su, the Taiwanese owner of the company deploying the huge supertanker believed that he had a solution. He installed a skimming device and he had his ship modified for separating any collected mixtures of crude oil and seawater. Unfortunately, his designs did not work. The US Coast Guard cooperated in testing the skimming capabilities and found it to be ineffective. Now Mr. Su is stuck with the huge bills for modifying his ship, for fuel expenses, for crew salaries, and for missed freight assignments.
The residents of the Gulf are fortunate that the bad news of the super skimmer's failure was counterbalanced by the good news that the newly installed cap on BP's broken well is holding and that the prospects for the successful completion of the relief wells seem to be more favorable despite the fact that the well casing seems to be damaged. From the preliminary feedback one can conclude that the odds for closing the well permanently have improved.
Now the next major issue needs to be addressed with extreme urgency; how fast can the millions of gallons of oil, floating on the surface of the Gulf and hidden in large plumes of mixtures of dispersants and very small oil globules, be removed? Oil skimming technology is still in a deplorable state. Neither the oil industry, which is exposing US taxpayers to huge cleanup bills with each new well, nor the government agencies, which are charged with protecting US shores, had the foresight or hindsight for initiating R&D into effective oil spill rescue technologies.
Nobody assumed responsibility for protecting the residents of the Gulf from potential damages by exploration and drilling in coastal waters. Many citizens have warned of the existential threats and the exposure to huge economic damages from coastal drilling in the Gulf for years. But their voices are not heard by a US Congress that is run by non-elected lobbyists, who in turn are paid by the oil industry.
The hurricane season is in full swing. It is very likely that one or two hurricanes will enter Gulf waters and will make landfalls on the southern shores of the Gulf. It is critically important to retrieve as much of spilled oil as possible before the pending arrival of tropical storms and hurricanes.
Reasonably coherent oil slicks will be blown apart by storms and feeder bands of hurricanes. Future skimming operations will become much more difficult once a major storm has disintegrated and dissipated oil patches. Skimming will become less effective and much less spilled oil can be collected with existing skimming equipment. Figures made available by the US Coast Guard clearly prove that their efforts of skimming oil have been exceptionally inefficient despite the deployment of a very large number of vessels. Most of these vessels were built for other purposes and have only very limited skimming capabilities.
Large amounts of oil will be spread over an enormous area and a large percentage of the leaked oil will never be recovered. As a result, Gulf wetlands, estuaries, shores, and beaches will be soiled continually for years to come. The amount of leaked oil on the surface of the Gulf is gigantic right now and a substantial percentage of this leaked oil can never again be skimmed once it is scattered all over the Gulf by high winds and stormy seas.
In view of the extensive economic damages that floating oil has inflicted on Gulf residents and considering the ineffective efforts of cleaning soiled lands, one has to ask if it is sensible to send the supertanker home. Maybe Mr. Su could have looked for an expert, capable of modifying his failing skimmer design? Never again may there be a chance to employ a supertanker for skimming duties. And the costs of fabricating a skimming device and attaching it to a supertanker are trivial compared to the costs of cleaning oil with ineffective equipment from sands, soils, and grasses ashore.
Mr. Su acted with conviction but ran afoul on the limited technical expertise of his team. US Coast Guard members quickly determined that Mr. Su's ideas were faulty but were not able to provide the technical expertise that Mr. Su and Gulf residents needed so badly.
The residents of the Gulf are watching the departure of Mr. Su's supertanker with regret and are waiting with great apprehension for the coming storms.