As a massive oil spill makes landfall off the Gulf of Mexico and begins to wreak havoc on local wildlife and industries, some companies may end up benefiting from containment and recovery operations.

The leak from a blown-out oil well on the ocean floor off Louisiana is pouring out crude oil at a rate of up to 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons or 955,000 liters) a day. Hundreds of species of wildlife will be affected by the spill, which could be worse then the Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska in 1989.

Seymour, Connecticut-based Lamor Slickbar says it has been supplying oil booms and skimmers to contractors helping to clean up the Gulf. Booms float on a foam core and collect oil with a net a few feet under the surface. They are used to protect shorelines and harbors, and can also be used in the open ocean. They're primarily used for oil spills, and are most effective in waters with currents less than 0.75 knots. Anything greater than that and booms are best used to deflect oil sheens into calmer waters. Skimmers drag behind ships and scoop up oil in large brushes. The brushes are then scrapped off, preventing the waste of water.

Lamor Slickbar, owned by Finland's Lamor Corp, says it has increased shifts to produce more boom. So far the company has trucked about 14,000 feet of boom from its Connecticut plant to the region since BP's rig collapsed last week. While booms are designed to be reused, Lamor Slickbar warned that its quickly running through its supply and has put reserves in Finland and other locations in the world on alert.

"We are building everything we have here with the material we have," said Dan Beyer, head of the company's sales operations in the Americas. About 40,000 feet of additional boom could be shipped via air to the Gulf with 72 hours notice from the company's facilities throughout the world, Beyer said.

An average boom ranges in price from $8 to $20 a foot, though some specialty booms can cost as much as $200 a foot. Lamor Slickbar declined to supply revenue data, or forecast how much of a boost it expects to get from the leak.

"I'm sure it will bump our results this year," Beyer said. Beyer estimated that there may be as much as 1 million feet of boom currently deployed in the Gulf.

No stranger to major disasters, Lamor Slickbar supplied booms and skimmers for the cleanup of Alaska's Prince William Sound after the Exxon Valdez hit a reef in 1989. Thousands of barrels of oil leak naturally from the planet each year, and there are many smaller oil leaks from man-made causes. That keeps a steady supply of business for Lamor Slickbar and its peers.

Other manufacturers of oil booms include Carmi, Illinois-based Elastec/American Marine, Burnaby, British Columbia-based Versatech, and Sebastian, Fla.-based Granite Environmental. Herdon, Va.-based Marine Spill Response Corp, which is coordinating Gulf containment efforts, is working with the Navy and Coast Guard on cleanup operations, and is using Lamor Slickbar's materials.

Other technologies are also helping recovery efforts. Detergents and absorbents, which clump to oil particles and help dissolve them or settle to the ocean floor, are critical tools for containment and recovery efforts. Dow Chemical's Triton X-100 acts a detergent, dispersant and emulsifier for oil in bodies of water.

Chemical manufacturers Dow, Shell Chemical and LyondellBasell said they did not expect the oil spill to affect their operations in the Gulf. Most chemical plants take their water from the Mississippi River, not the Gulf.

For more photos, go to NASA Goddard's flickr site or to the U.S. Coast Guard Eighth District External Affairs' flickr page.