Like the technician said, it will need further diagnosing. It could be coming from a few places, what you can do is get some dish soap and a stiff bristle brush and clean as much oil up as possible. Then drive the car for a bit, come back and look where the fresh oil is coming from.

You can also buy a UV Dye kit, putting UV Dye in the oil. Drive the car for a bit, then get under the car with a UV light and find the green Dye. This will be where the oil leak is.

 

You can see oil starting right at the oil pan seam in the video. So you have at least that leaking.

 

For the E46, the 3 most common oil leaks are: valve cover gasket, oil filter housing gasket, or oil pan gaskets. You need to start looking from the top of the engine because by the time oil gets to the bottom of the engine, normal driving will cause the oil to be blown back from wind.

Oil leaks from valve cover gasket will originate from the top right side of the engine (right from the perspective of the driver in his seat). Oil leaks from oil filter housing gasket will originate from the top left side of the engine. Oil leak from oil pan gasket will not start from the top of the engine.

 

Add a 4th- power steering. BMW power steering seems to leak a lot, too.

And yes, it should be red ATF, but in most cars, it seems to be pretty black...

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Looks like the oil pan for sure is leaking. Not too bad of a repair but you will have to use a engine support bar to perform the repair. Budget 6 hours or so and get the car up on some ramps or jack stands. Not sure if the engine in your car has a cpv seal or not like the m3. It’s on passenger side rear of the engine block aboit 8 inches up from the oil pan/block junction. It lives underneath a large flat headed screw. As other say, do a good degreasing and drive it and see where it’s leaking. It’s a 22 year old bmw, it will leak oil like the Exxon Valdez until you determine and repair the leaks.

 

do you think it will cause other issues or can I just keep adding oil to the engine?
I will definitely check it out myself when I get some time and equipment.

 

You need to at a minimum confirm what is leaking and where it is leaking from. Toby made a good point in that the leak could be from the automatic transmission fluid reservoir. ATF fluid leak from there could compromise other rubber hoses underneath so that’s more urgent to fix. If it’s just oil, then it’s less urgent to fix. You can just keep adding oil.

 

you can keep adding oil. as long as it isnt pouring out of the engine and you still have oil pressure to the bearings, the engine itself doesnt care. It'll just make a huge mess.

That is, barring the following: mostly, oil will just burn and stink (like on exhaust manifolds), but in super rare instances, fire. If oil gets on your belts, that is troublesome too.