Shell comes to BP's aid in the Gulf

As rescue crews struggle to stem the flow of oil spewing from a well on the ocean floor in the Gulf of Mexico, it has been revealed that rival oil companies have joined forces while attempting to fix the problem.

With the latest estimates saying it could take two months to plug the leaking Macondo oil well, Tan Chong Meng, Shell's executive vice president of bio fuels, told the Carsales Network at this week's Michelin Bibendum energy conference in Brazil that Shell has supplied rescue ships, crew and even its own crisis centre.

"The crisis centre that BP is using, that you see on CNN, at the back there is a piece of cloth," he said. "The reason there is a piece of cloth is because it covers the [Shell logo]. That is actually Shell's crisis centre. We had a crisis centre to manage our previous experience during [cyclone] Katrina, so whatever it took to provide help, we've done."

When asked what the oil industry had learned from the latest oil spill disaster, he said: "I think what has happened in the Gulf of Mexico is obviously something we should look to very closely, to learn from, whether we are BP or any other industry player, producer or engineering servicing company that provides the equipment.

"[But] I would say it is still early days. Certainly there have been attempts to look at learnings even at this stage but it's still early days. Rest assured we will reflect on what has happened and consider what it means for our operations."

He said, for the time being, the focus was trying to solve this leak rather than prevent another from occurring.

"Right now we are really putting our shoulder to the task of contributing our part to the rescue operations. There is no shortage of effort," he said.

"Within the first hours and days we [Shell] had a number of ships and people deployed there."

Part of the reason the Gulf of Mexico spill is so difficult to stem is because of the depth of the well, said to be 1.5km below the surface of the water.

As oil supplies have become harder to find, oil companies have had to dig digger in the search for crude.

As serious as the latest drama is, it is not as bad as another Gulf of Mexico leak in 1979 -- involving a well just 50m below the surface of the water. Back then, the equivalent of 3.3 million barrels of oil spewed out over nine months and 22 days.

So far, estimates put the latest oil spill at the equivalent of 630,000 barrels (or 15,000 barrels a day). An additional 900,000 barrels of crude (bringing the tital to 1.5 million barrels) are expected to leak between now and when the leak could be fixed by August 1.

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