Ocean Therapy Solutions Help Clean Up the Gulf Oil Spill

Business disaster, PR nightmare, a $2.65 billion clean-up bill… and that’s not to mention the environmental effects. But for one company, the BP oil catastrophe has provided the perfect business opportunity.

Ocean Therapy Solutions made headlines a month ago, when co-founder and Hollywood star Kevin Costner held a press conference top bring attention to the firm's siphoning machines that separate oil from water, leaving the end product 87 percent clean. Costner explained how the largest machines can seprate 200 gallons of oil a minute, and the machines are now being sent out to the Gulf of Mexico to help with the mass clean up operation.

As BP chief exec Tony Hayward remains something of a blundering villain in the US media, Costner and his business partner in the venture, John Houghtaling, have emerged as national darlings, both testifying before Congress and stressing the importance of cleaning up the spill.
Speaking to Next Generation Oil & Gas, Houghtaling outlined the challenges facing Ocean Therapy Solutions, the problems of underwater blooms and successful trials. "We had been running the factory with no customers," he explains, "it's practically been dormant. So we have spun the factory back up. We have ten V20 [machines] that are already manufactured. Those are either on vessels right now, or they're being put on vessels in Venice, Louisiana."

For Ocean Therapy Solutions, the disaster has very much been an event they wished they would never have to respond to. After witnessing the Exxon Valdez disaster, CEO Kevin Costner invested $26 million of his own money into developing the separation machines so if such a disaster happened again, there would be devices capable of aiding the response.
"The orders that we have gotten from BP is for the huge ones, the V20," Houghtaling reveals. "To fill that order, we've got ten of those down on the ground, and we're starting the factory up. By August 1st, we will have all 32 of the big V20s working. And after August 1st, we're going to be able to make, at a minimum, ten a week."

Houghtaling was positive about his firm's relationship with the BP, "I sat with Doug Suttles (President of BP operations in Alaska) about four days ago," he says, "and he told me at the very beginning when we talked about the technology, he had looked into it and he just without any doubt says, "Let's go with these [machines] immediately - let's get them out there."
Houghtaling went on to support BP's Suttles, explaining how the exec had been find a way of deploying Ocean Therapy Solution's machines in the future. "Our vision was to be a metaphorical fire truck. And we have a fire solution, in case there's a problem. And Suttles said he would be in favor of a program like that.

"Kevin and I have sat with Rahm Emanuel (President Obama's chief of staff), Senator Mary Landrieu, and Senator Buchanan, and they're in favor of this program. Kevin and I also sat with John McCain, and John McCain has spoken with the governor, and they are both in favor of the program.

"Really, the machines need to be in place on boats, and rigs, before there's a spill, so that we can deploy. Had we had machines out there at the spill, we would be recapturing all the oil without any dispersant. In addition to doing what we can to work on the clean-up, we are very intent on being able to help as a preventative measure."