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at Pacific Petroleum Recovery Alaska, has
produced many inventions all of which have
videos posted on his website.
Among them is what he calls as the Otter
Skimmer. It has two versions: the Sea Otter
Series and the River Otter Series. The former
weighs 1,200 pounds, which fits in 4 full-sized
fish totes and deploys in 2 hours or less; while
the latter is less than 500 pounds, able to fit
in 1 fish tote, and can be operated on a long-
term basis with minimal staff.
It works by throwing to the ocean to gather
the oil and get it into the device on board,
which separates the oil from water and pumps
it into a storage container.
Its inventor believes that it is more efficient,
at 98% oil recovery efficiency, than the
equipment response teams used in cleaning
up oil spills. Matt Melton, the general
manager of an oil spill response team based
in Anchorage called the Alaska Chadux
Corporation, agrees.
However, it is unfortunate that Melton cannot
endorse Kennedy’s equipment. There are
existing oil spill cleanup equipment that meet
all the requirements. Plus, oil spill response
teams like Melton’s have grown to their use.
Melton is not disqualifying the greatness of the
Otter Skimmer. He says that it might come in
handy on certain oil spills.
“If I had an oil spill tomorrow and I called Kevin
and he had one sitting on his shelf, I’d take it
in a second,” says Melton.
For now, Kennedy keeps on improving and
developing his oil spill cleaning devices
until he gets the nod of the response teams,
especially Melton.
Oil & Gas Leaders • April 2017 47