If you heard that the Saudis offered a tanker to suck up and separate the oil and we refused the offer, I’d really like to read up on that. Do you remember where you heard this?
You should be able to find it in a google news search under super tanker scooper of some variation of that. I see if I can find it.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/24/tech/main6514382.shtml
“Former Shell Oil president John Hofmeister and former Saudi Aramco manager Nick Pozzi told Fast Company that 85 percent of oil from a massive offshore Saudi spill in the early 1990s was cleaned up using supertankers to suck in seawater and oil - millions of barrels at a time - and discharge them in port where the two substances could be separated and treated.
Hofmeister and Pozzi each said they'd tried suggesting the solution to both BP and government officials, and have heard crickets.
Perhaps, as Pozzi tells Fast Company, it's the downside to the plan: “You tie up oil tankers” - tankers that could be carrying crude above the Gulf's waters to customers.”
The article explains that with the plumes of oil far under the service, as with the present spill, the supertanker will not work.
It is also very, very expensive to operate. A supertanker is used to transport oil. Divert from that use and you still pay what it would have been earning and then some.
I have to think, though, that had it been called in, a lot of the coastline would not be oiled.
Here is the link to Fast Company
http://www.fastcompany.com/1646820/could-the-gulf-oil-spill-could-cleaned-up-by-supertankers