Over the course of last week, allegations arose of renewed leaking in the Macondo oil field, the site of last year's Deepwater Horizon oil spill (Map). New Orleans lawyer Stuart Smith initially reported that as many as 40 Vessels of Opportunity (VoO) boats were hired by BP to lay boom around a growing slick near the site of the Macondo field. Later, two ships that assisted in the mission to kill the leaking oil well were photographed near the site: Helix Producer I, an oil production vessel capable of handling 45,000 barrels of oil per day, and the Helix Express, a subsea construction vessel.
It is currently unknown what the two Helix vessels are doing in the vicinity of the Macando well, but there has been speculation that the ships are working to find the source of the leak via Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) and perhaps working to construct subsea infrastructure that will allow BP to produce oil to the surface or connect into the 25,000 miles of underwater oil and gas pipeline in the Gulf of Mexico.
