Jeff Bohleber said he doesn’t mind watching his products burn every night on national news.
Bohleber is the chief financial officer of Elastec/American Marine, a Carmi, Ill.-based company that has been providing oil spill equipment to the Gulf of Mexico since the oil leak began April 20. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill has become the largest offshore oil spill in history, according to conservative estimates of the U.S. Geological Survey.
“Every night on the news, you see the burning of oil in the Gulf — that’s us,” Bohleber said.
Elastec is the largest manufacturer of oil spill equipment in the United States — and the only company that produces the Hydro-Fire Boom system, which is the fastest way to eliminate oil from spreading to the shorelines, said Brian Cook, marketing assistant for Elastec.
Cook said the concept of the Hydro-Fire Boom system is simple to understand. He said each end of the boom, a 500 ft. log shaped barrier filled with foam, is connected to two boats, which drag the boom until it forms a U-configuration.
As this happens, oil is collected within the barrier of the boom until it is thick enough to ignite, said Cook. He said this method does produce a lot of smoke, but thousands of barrels are being destroyed rather than ending up on the shores or spreading elsewhere.
This type of boom is a reusable, cost effective alternative to other boom concepts that burn up immediately — causing the burning oil to spread, Bohleber said.
Bohleber said Elastic began shipping oil spill equipment to the Gulf April 26, six days after the oil spill began. He said two weeks later, Elastec signed a contract with BP for 420,000 feet containment boom and 15,000 feet of Hydro-Fire Boom. BP renewed the contract June 8 for an additional 210,000 feet of boom, but Bohleber could not disclose the contract amount.
“Once the contract was signed, it took all of our inventory, everything for existing customers — and for BP,” Cook said. “So it hit us three times as hard.”
Randy Knight, a shipping supervisor at Elastec, said the company had only 12 employees before the oil spill, but has since hired 8 full-time employees and 36 temporary employees. Knight said the employment increase would last as long as demand is high in the Gulf of Mexico.
“When other companies were laying people off, we were hiring people,” Cook said.
Elastec currently ships one or two truckloads of boom daily to the Gulf, with roughly 5,400 feet on each load, said Knight.
The demand is high for oil spill equipment, and it doesn’t look like that demand will slow in the immediate future, said Cook.
“Even if this rig were to get plugged today, that oil is still going to be out there for a long time,” he said.
Bohleber said it’s been very stressful for BP to try to marshal the resources to take care of the spill. He said BP has provided efficiency experts for Elastec to increase production since the contract was signed in May, and has asked the company to supply as much as they can.
“Nobody really knew the magnitude of this. I don’t think BP did either,” Bohleber said.