Slick visible at site of Chevron's blowout and fire off Nigeria

A small slick on today's Envisat ASAR radar satellite image covering the site of Chevron's blowout and fire off the coast of Nigeria has been noticed. Sky Truth measure it at about 18.6 km long, extending about 39 square km. It appears to be very thin.

Assuming the slick is, on average, one micron thick, that amounts to about 9,500 gallons of some oily substance – possibly unburned natural gas condensate, since this was reported by Chevron to be a gas exploration well that was not creating any oil slick.

SKYTRUTH, February 8, 2012