Saudis can help fix BP oil leak: former Aramco engineer
19 Jun 2010
As BP continues to pour resources to contain the undersea oil well leak in the Gulf of Mexico, paying hundreds of boats in the area trying to keep the oil from reaching the US shoreline, there have been demands by politicians, media, environmentalists and ordinary citizens for more effective measures.
The latest suggestion comes from Nick Pozzi, a former pipeline engineering and operations manager for Saudi Aramco, is seek help from Saudi Arabia.
Pozzi says the oil-rich nation contained a similar oil leak in the Persian Gulf in 1993 using super tankers, after an accident spilled millions of litres of crude oil.
The former Aramco engineer says he was on the team that developed a plan to remove the crude using Saudi-owned super tankers, which he says have the ability to suck or discharge, "so they can pump or suck."
"What we could [what amounts of oil we could extract] we ran through a centrifuge to separate the oil from the water. We put the water back in the Gulf, because we want to get the oil out first, get it out of the water."
Pozzi says the operation cleaned up 85 per cent of the total oil spilled.
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