Much of the oil is so far down in the Gulf that only nature , including microbes , will be able to remove it using a process called bioremediation . Terry Hazen of the Department of Energy 's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory said the process could take months or years . But after six weeks of research , he said that microbes could work quickly in water as opposed to colder-temperature waters . The '' A Whale '' , which is an oil tanker converted into a giant oil skimmer owned by the Taiwan Marine Transport Co ( TMT ) , could do little because of BP 's use of chemical dispersants , the company said . Robert Bea of The University of California , who worked on the Ixtoc spill and the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill , said the old methods would be the best ones . Dispersants , he said , did not work except in keeping beaches clean , and they hurt the environment
Ixtoc spill
Ixtoc I oil spill
Efforts to stem the Deepwater Horizon oil spill