3 oiled birds spotted after Hibernia spill, sheen still visible

Three oiled birds have been spotted and a sheen still remains on the water afteran estimated 12,000 litres of oil spilled from the Hibernia platform on Wednesday.

As of Monday morning, one of those birds had been captured and was on its way to shore, saidScott Sandlin, president of the Hibernia Management and Development Company.

"We were not able to recover those other two but we reported all three observations to the appropriate regulatory agencies," he said.

Late Monday afternoon, HIbernia added that onedead bird "was discovered on deck of a vessel ...The bird was not oiled but will be transported onshore."

Hibernia is owned by a conglomerate of oil companies under the umbrella of HMDC, with the largest partner being ExxonMobil.

An estimated 75 barrelsof an oil and water mixture was discharged into the ocean from a storage cell on Wednesday. Under HMDC orders, all production on the platform was stopped.

On Thursday morning, the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Boardsaid there were two slicks visible on the surface of the water.One was1.71 square kilometres and 3.27 kilometres long, andone was6.64 square kilometresand 3.78 kilometres long.

Sandlin saidsome of that oil is still visible on the surface and seven boats are in the area, helping with efforts to scoop it up.

A plane and a helicopter are guiding from above, he said.

Still too soon for answers

It's too early to tell how much of that oil has been recovered, he said.

"What we get is a mix of sea water and the oily water mixture that we're attempting to recover," he said. "We still have testing to do to see how much of that fluid is actually the targeted oily water mixture and how much is sea water."

Right now, the company is focused on cleaning up the mess and figuring out what caused the spill in the first place, he said.

The spill was blamed on thesystem used for measuring oil and water within the platform's six storage cells, and Sandlin said HMDC is looking at the sensors on those cells that indicate how much oil and how much water is in each.

The cells still containan oil and water mixture, but it's all held in with mechanical barriers, he said. With production shut down, he said, there's no risk of another spill.

And it's too soon to even talk about starting up again, he said.

"We'll have the conversation about that at the appropriate time and that's not today."

A number of spills

The province's offshore industryhas been in hot water in recent months, after Husky Energy spilled 250,000 litres of oil into the North Atlantic in November.

It was the largest spill in the history of the province's offshore, andresulted in the shutdown of the SeaRose floating productionstorage offloading vessel. It began partial production again in January, with three of its five drilling centres back up and running. The other two are still idled.

In 2017,HMDChad to pay $250,000in connection with a 2013 spill at the Hibernia platform.

Hibernia said anyone who has fishing gear impacted by its response efforts and needs to initiate a claim can contact the company.

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