New Orleans Police detective Alexander Reiter inspects debris from a building that collapsed during Hurricane Ida in New Orleans on Monday. Ida knocked out power to New Orleans and inundated coastal Louisiana communities on a deadly path through the Gulf Coast, and is still unfolding and promises more destruction. Photo: VCG

Workers have deployed containment booms and skimmer devices as they attempt to contain a sizable oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico discovered after Hurricane Ida roared through the area, said the US Coast Guard. 

The spill is in waters off Port Fourchon, Louisiana, near where Ida made landfall, in a region that is a major hub of the US petrochemical industry. 

An oil slick now extends more than a dozen kilometers through the warm waters of the Gulf but has yet to reach shore, the Houston Chronicle reported.

The Coast Guard in Louisiana said it had been informed of a spill in that area and was responding, but provided few details.

Talos Energy, a Texas firm specializing in offshore oil and gas exploration, has dispatched cleanup vessels and divers to the site. The company, which had operated in the area of the spill until 2017, insisted that its equipment was not the cause of the leak.

The response team "identified a non-Talos owned 12 [inch/30 centimeter] pipeline displaced from its original trench location, which appears to be bent and open ended," the company said in a statement. 

"Additionally, two non-Talos owned 4 [inch/10 centimeter]lines have been identified in the vicinity that are open ended and appear to be previously abandoned."

Talos said it is using booms and skimmers to clean up. 

Packing winds of up to 240 kilometers per hour, Ida has roared through Louisiana on August 29, and caused catastrophic damage, according to the local authorities. 

AFP