We have learned a great deal about how the oil industry operates in past few months.  They are very secretive and will only be forthcoming about their operations and resulting environmental impact if threatened by authorities.  Unfortunately, large quantities of oil have appeared in recent days around the resorts of Hurghada,in the Egyptian Red Sea.  Hurghada is a  place that draw millions of tourists who come to dive or snorkel. 

It started four or five days ago and the companies responsible didn’t notify anyone. It is catastrophic,” HEPCA managing director Amr Ali told an AFP reporter. HEPCA, a non-governmental organisation based in Hurghada, has been working for the protection of natural resources in the Red Sea.The spill was caused by leakage from an offshore oil platform north of Hurghada and has polluted protected areas and showed up on tourist beach resorts.

“The companies have said they will pay damages, but it is the environmental damage that we are concerned about,” Ali said, declining to name the companies for legal reasons.  “We will take all measures, including legal, to make sure this does not happen again…we would like to see more stringent standards imposed on these offshore platforms to ensure natural areas are protected,” he said.

More than 180 rigs also operate in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Suez, according to the oil ministry, although production from the area has declined in the past decade.  Total Egyptian oil output averaged 742,000 barrels a day in 2009, compared with a peak of 941,000 barrels a day at the end of 1993, according to the BP Annual Statistical Review of World Energy.

The oil has been visible on- and offshore since June 17. Hoteliers and provincial government workers are cleaning the white sand beaches along the Hurghada shore though no effort has been made to collect the oil at sea floating atop coral reefs that are a magnet for visiting divers.

“This is a vital area for tourism,” said Mohamed Shobaghi, general manager for Aquanaut, a dive center in Hurghada. “I suppose the authorities expect the oil to clean up itself.”

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