Finns Cleaning Up in the Gulf of Mexico

Every week, I read a Finnish newsletter for engineers and economists called Tekniikka & Talous (translated Technology and Economy). In the latest issue (November 5, 2010) there's an article on the participation of Finns in the cleanup of the oil spill from the explosion at BP's Deepwater Horizon platform in the Gulf of Mexico. Since the company the paper reports on is based in my home town of Porvoo on the south coast of Finland, how can I help but present an English translation of the article here?

When the Porvoo Boys Cleaned up the American Oil Spill

By Veli-Matti Jalovaara

The Porvoo company Lamor delivered about 60 per cent of the oil cleanup equipment used in the area of the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. The preparedness for this operation didn't exist in all of the USA. It existed in Finland.

When the BP oil drilling platform Deepwater Horizon suffered an explosion in April, BP contacted Lamor.

"Three days later we were in Louisiana. We established a command center of our own in Kenner near New Orleans, next to the airport," says the president of Lamor, Fred Larsen.

Working on scenarios, the Lamor people realized that the area had a large potential fleet of ships that could be utilized for the cleanup operation. The small fishing and shrimping boats there were already equipped with trawling booms. These could quickly be hooked to oil spill containment booms. Each boat would tow an oil skimmer that would pump the recovered oil into a floating tank also towed behind the ship. Thus they introduced a new concept into oil spill abatement. (See Lamor's pages on the operation.)

"There were about 500 boats available for the operation. We also got the task of training 1,500 fishermen. They were a colorful crowd. All of them weren't quite literate, but once they got out to sea, things started happening. They know that part of the ocean so well that the concept became a success," Larsen reminisces.

Lamor first flew the equipment from their stores in Finland to the States, and then also from Dubai and Oman. The existing equipment was nowhere near enough, so they had to start up new production in a hurry. Lamor has about 60 staff in Finland, but the company doesn't produce its equipment itself. Their production network consists of some 200 suppliers, and in spite of the summer vacation season they accepted the job fast.

As new equipment was delivered, Finnair flew it from Helsinki to New York, from where it was taken by truck to Louisiana. About 200 miles of oil containment booms were also delivered mainly by air.

At the peak, a total of 38,000 people took part in the operations in the disaster area. At the present time, most of the activities have ceased. All of Lamor's equipment used in the Gulf of Mexico has been cleaned, serviced, and put back into storage.

Not a lot of oil has been detected on the surface of the water anymore. The rest of the oil spill is, however, still somewhere, and it could rise to the surface, say, if the temperature of the sea water rises.

"The oil that floated got cleaned up pretty well," Fred Larsen says. "Only a small proportion of the oil made it to shore."

Business has by no means come to a standstill after the Gulf of Mexico operation. Worldwide, there are 5 to 7 oil spills every day, when smaller accidents are included.

Box:

Everything depends on the brush

Lamor's inventions are based on brushes. The company got its first brush-related patent in 1982.

Lamor's brushes are durable--and yellow. Yellow is the theme color of the company, but it also has practical significance. It's easy to see from the yellow brushes how well they are picking up the oil.

As the brush picks up the oil, the water has the time to run off between the bristles. As a result, nearly pure oil goes into the pump scoop.

According to Lamor, its competitors' products suck up a significant amount of water along with the oil. This way, the ships collecting the oil fill up sooner, making the work inefficient.