BP cleaning up Arctic oil spill

Alaska's North Slope has been sprayed with a mix of crude oil, natural gas and water over a 33-acre area. A pipe attached to a BP-owned well pad caused the spill, which was made worse by 30mph winds. The discovery of the spray was made on Monday (April 28th) following a routine inspection of the area.

The incident occurred at BP's Prudhoe Bay oil field operation, with the spray being active for around two hours before it was contained. It was found that the pipe that was releasing the mixture of natural gas, oil and water was facing upwards, which caused the strong winds to spread the spilled substance over a larger area.

This spill has occurred only a week after a report was issued by federal scientists that suggested the US is currently incredibly unprepared to handle oil spills in the Arctic. Scientists from the National Research Council released a report stating that the Arctic's environment is "uniquely challenging" in terms of cleaning up an oil spill. This is because pockets of oil can become trapped in pockets under freezing ice, meaning it cannot be reached by traditional clean-up efforts. This means Arctic spills could take a lot longer to deal with.   

Speaking to the Associated Press, Dawn Patience, spokesperson for BP, said the company was assessing the repairs that are needed. According to Ms Patience, it is still too early to determine what the possible long-term impacts might be following the spill. However, no wildlife was reported as being affected by the oil spray. It is not yet known how long the clean-up efforts will take, or how much of the mixture was released in the end.

BP has suffered spills in the Prudhoe Bay area before, each of which resulted in multi-million dollar fines from the US government due to the fact the incidents were deemed to be caused by irresponsibility on the oil company's part. The firm is still making efforts to clean-up the spill that occurred in 2009.