Oil spill volume is a limited measure of damage or impact. Smaller spills have already proven to have a great impact on ecosystems, such as the "Exxon Valdez" oil spill because of the remoteness of the site or the difficulty of an emergency environmental response. Since 2004, between 300 and 700 barrels of oil per day have been leaking from the site of an oil-production platform 12 miles off the Louisiana coast which sank in the aftermath of Hurricane Ivan. The oil spill, which officials estimate could continue throughout the 21st century, will eventually overtake the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizion disaster as
2009 Lüderitz oil spill 2009 Lüderitz oil spill The 2009 Lüderitz oil spill began in April 2009 off the coast of Lüderitz, Namibia. The oil spill directly affected 171 African penguins, with many more possibly threatened. The oil spill is in the area where the fishing trawler "Meob Bay" sank in June 2002, killing 19 seamen. The boat sank after a rope got caught in the propeller, which then detached causing water to flood into the engine room. However, an inspection of the site where the vessel had sunk showed that the wreck was not the source of the oil; the source of the