of a million dollars for October's oil spill.

The final tally could approach $500,000.

General manager, Mr. Keith Hollis, confirmed the bill was already in the region of $200,000 and although he expects to, he has not yet seen a bill from the Bermuda Government.

But the company is set to spend another $150,000 next month to bring in cutting edge technology that will provide a diagnostic function in determining the health of the pipe-line that takes oil from the oil docks in the East End to the Bermuda Electric Light Company Ltd. in Pembroke.

He said the special testing is being done as a direct consequence of the oil spill. The technology is so specialised that there is a waiting list for the use of the equipment, called a "smart pig.'' By the time the equipment arrives, Esso will have waited seven to eight weeks.

The instrument moves along the entire length of the pipeline and records readings, while examining the pipe.

Mr. Hollis said, "The costs to us are on-going. We are going to have a team here from the UK with the `smart pig', a device that will X-ray the conditions of the pipeline from the inside out, giving us a complete profile of the pipeline from Esso to Belco.

"It is the latest in technology and we will be able to get information data from it immediately. But once the device is taken back to the UK, it will in about 45 days, print out a wealth of other information about the pipeline.

"Somewhere up to in excess of $200,000 has been spent already. The pipeline has a protective coating and is fitted with a leak detecting device. "But the coating failed on the ground and we are investigating why. If the coating had not failed, the pipeline would have been protected. We had no way of knowing there was a problem.'' Esso used Government equipment in its moves to contain the spill, equipment it subsequently replaced.

Hundreds of gallons of oil leaked out of the ruptured pipeline, but Bermuda was lucky to escape any serious damage to the environment.

Mr. Hollis said, "From the time that this pin-hole leak occurred, we have flown into Bermuda a number of engineers who specialise in pipeline operations and incidents of this type.

"We have unearthed the pipeline and the critical areas down there and tested the pipeline back and forth. We have taken samples of the pipeline and the coating and sent them off to our research laboratories at Exxon Research and Engineering Company in Linden, New Jersey.

"We have been in touch with British Gas, the experts on the `smart pig' technology. We are preparing the pipeline to be able to accommodate the device. There has been a tremendous amount of pressure testing on the pipeline. By the time we have finished here, we will be guaranteeing the integrity of the pipeline.'' Mr. Keith Hollis