Oil Spills from Well in Rattle Snake Bayou

The U.S. Coast Guard is responding to an oil discharge near Port Sulphur, Louisiana. 

On Sunday, Watchstanders at Coast Guard Sector New Orleans received a report from the National Response Center that a crude oil well in Rattle Snake Bayou, southwest of Port Sulphur, was leaking. The amount discharged has not been determined; the well is rated to produce 5,476 gallons of oil per day, but it is not known when the discharge began.

The source of the discharge has not been secured. Hilcorp, the owner of the well, has contracted ES&H as an oil spill response organization. ES&H currently has four response boats and 13 personnel conducting containment and cleanup operations. Wild Well Control has been contracted to work on securing the source.  

 Also involved in the response are Plaquemines Parish Sherriff’s Department, the Louisiana Oil Spill Coordinator’s Office and the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration.

The cause of the incident is under investigation.

In March last year, the U.S. Coast Guard responded to a natural gas and crude oil discharge from an abandoned wellhead owned by Hilcorp near mile marker 10 on the Lower Mississippi River, southwest of Venice, Louisiana. In 2016, a Hilcorp Energy pipeline was determined to be the source of a spill of 4,200 gallons of crude oil near Lake Grande Ecaille.