Experts estimate the extension of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to be 476 kilometers

Two leaks registered in the oilfields of Ek Balam, in the Gulf of Mexico, caused a leak which reached an extension, by July 12, of 467 square kilometers, estimated experts from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

The stain will probably head towards the east-northeast and will eventually make landfall on the coasts of the Mexican states of Veracruz, Tamaulipas or the United States, they added in a statement issued this Saturday by the UNAM.

Following the information about the incident, reported on July 6 to the Security, Energy and Environment Agency (ASEA) and the Secretary of the Navy (SEMAR), UNAM reported this Saturday that academics from the Institute of Geography (IGg) and the National Earth Observation Laboratory (Lanot), of UNAM, analyzed the event with the help of radar images, to trace the affected area.

“These types of images essentially detect the texture of the objects and it is possible to discriminate on the marine surface, due to the difference in densities and the wave pattern, the oil slick from the rest of the ocean”, explained Gabriela Gómez Rodríguez, IGg academic.

The UNAM recalled that the Ek Balam fields are part of the Cantarell Complex, of the state-owned Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), located 80 kilometers northwest of Ciudad del Carmen, Campeche state, southeast of Mexico.

After processing the images and determining the geographic location of the oil slick contour, it was estimated that, on July 12, the oil spill in Ek Balam “reached an extension of 467 square kilometers”, indicated Gómez Rodríguez.

The expert specified that there are various models of marine currents with which it is possible to estimate where the stain will lead.

“It will probably head east-northeast and eventually make landfall on the Gulf coast, in Veracruz, Tamaulipas or the United States.”, Gómez Rodríguez pointed out in the report, this based on the analysis of maps included in the Environmental Baseline Atlas of the Gulf of Mexico, carried out by Romero Centeno and others (2021).

Last Monday, a group of environmental organizations, including Greenpeace, warned of a hydrocarbon spill in the Gulf of Mexico, in the same area where the fire on the Pemex Nohoch-A platform was recorded on July 7, in the Campeche Sound.

Using satellite images, they recorded an oil spill from the platforms in the area, “and allow us to assume that the spill began around July 4” and they estimated that the extension, as of July 12, was approximately 400 square kilometers, -more than double the area of ​​the city of Guadalajara-, although the authorities have not informed about the causes and consequences of it.

On Tuesday, Pemex admitted that its pipeline network from the Ek Balam fields suffered two leaks “minimum”, but rejected that it was a spill of 400 square kilometers, as denounced by Greenpeace and other associations.

In a statement, Pemex specified, the leak was actually 58 cubic meters, the equivalent of 365 barrels of oil, and affected an estimated area of ​​0.06 square kilometers where the thickness of the oil film was estimated to be less than one millimeter.

(With information from EFE)