How big is the BP oil spill disaster, and what if it happened here?

With an estimated 20,000 barrels of oil spilling into the sea every day, European Parliament lawmakers are also worried about whether it could happen in Europe. Last Tuesday, 22 June, the MEPs in Brussesl had an exchange of views about the situation and asked the European Commission to come and brief the next sitting of the Parliament itself on Wednesday 7 July.

At a depth of over 1,500 metres below the seabed, capping the well is proving a technological challenge: the spill is set to be the US’s worst environmental disaster and is set to dwarf the 1989 “Exxon-Valdez” spill in Alaska in 1989.  And it will also be immensely larger than similar disasters in Europe such as the “Amoco Cadiz” spill of 1978 off Brittany and the “Erika” disaster in the same area in 1999.

What would happen if the spill happened around Malta? One way of visualizing it is through www.ifitwasmyhome.com, a very handy visual tool. You can also see photo-like images which are taken by the MODIS Rapid Response System on NASA’s Terra satellite. The system generates daily near-real-time imagery of the oil in the Gulf of Mexico.

Speaking at the Environment Committee meeting on Tuesday, the Chair, German Socialist MEP Jo Leinen asked: “Why didn’t the European Commission react to our report on the environmental consequences of the North Stream pipeline? I believe that lobbies now are much more powerful than concerns for the environment.”

For the centre right, European People’s Party Peter Liese told the Committee: “I think this accident is a further motivation to leave petrol behind us. We need to invest in renewable energies even if there are difficulties”. The German Member went on to say that “it’s right to consider these difficulties (of using renewables), but you all see the consequences of oil disasters.”

French Liberal MEP Corinne Lepage called for a review of the way oil rigs are granted licences. Moreover, she told fellow MEPs that we had to think hard about moving away from oil: “there is less and less petrol available and we are looking for it in more and more extreme environments.”

Bart Staes, a Belgian Green Member said that “In the companies’ opinion, safety is not a priority. We don’t really know the situation in Europe”. He went on to say that “we have the EMSA (European Maritime Safety Agency) which is doing a great job, but it was established after oil tankers disasters - and it has nothing to do with oil rigs. Maybe we should extend its mandate?”

A representative of the Commission’s Energy department told MEPs that they were looking closely at European law in this area.  He also said that the average depth of drilling offshore in Europe is about 100 metres – so the conditions are less extreme.