BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

A little over seven years ago, on April 20, 2010, the BP oil company’s actions created the greatest manmade disaster to the environment in the United States history. In the aftermath of this disaster, thousands of marine organisms were injured and placed in life threatening scenarios. Thanks to the spill, the Gulf of Mexico and other parts of the ocean surrounding the gulf was flooded with an estimated amount of 205.8 million gallons of oil (Sakashita). The damages to the ecosystem and other organisms in the environment was detrimental, but the quantity loss of such a finite resource was devastating to the world. Society over uses and wastes non-renewable resources, therefore, should convert to a more infinite source of energy.

Only five years ago thousands of birds, dolphins, and sea turtles were washing up on the beaches of the Gulf of Mexico slicked and smothered by oil. The explosion of British Petroleum's Macondo oil rig off the coast on Louisiana was the largest environmental disaster to have occurred in the United States. This well leaked over 130 million gallons of light crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, destroying habitats and killing massive amounts of wildlife. Over eighty-seven days the oil spread through the water in a 21 mile plume, creating oil slicks on the surface of the water. Oil within the Gulf caused alarming short-term effects to wildlife in the initial days of the spill, but as these short term effects begin to disappear, BP was quick to claim

This article refers to the Gulf oil spill reached its don 't-just-stand-there moment. . Every day, the White House responded with updates and briefings. The White House has belatedly gotten the message, announcing new drilling regulations and scheduling the president 's second trip to the Gulf on Friday.

The Bp Deepwater Horizon accident was a problem associated with both faulty process safety culture. The disaster that took place could have been prevented if BP would have been committed to safety first. On January 11, 2011, a seven-member commission published a full report detailing the causes of the blow-out. This blow-out killed 11 men and leaked 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf. Bob Graham, commission co-chairman, stated that the incident would not have happened if the government regulators would have held BP responsible for world-class safety standards. His findings were critical to the civil lawsuit filed by the United States Justice Department against Transocean, BP, and other companies involved in the spill. Graham demanded

In the case of the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill, we examine the effects of an organization not being prepared for this particular crisis. The world scrutinized the actions, inactions, and the human decisions made by BP that led to a major catastrophic crisis. The organization was not prepared for a crisis of this magnitude. Our text stated that this type of negligence has been coined the term sloppy management. They were oblivious to the issues pertaining to the deep waters, the ocean wildlife and the habitats of those marine animals. They were not knowledgeable of several things, along with their initial conundrum of frantically searching for a way to stop the continued spilling of the oil into the ocean. One article quoted an official saying, “We knew how to respond to a surface spill, but this is completely different.”(Bond, D. 2013).

This paper will analyze the causation of the oil spill, and the actions BP took to stop the leak. Controversial chemicals such as Corexit 9500 will be evaluated. Long-term and short-term environmental impacts of the event will be analyzed. As mentioned above, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill had social/economic impacts on Gulf States, this will also be evaluated. After the event, or post-spill, BP established environmental and political remediation efforts. A few

The causes of ocean oil spills originate from hurricanes, people’s mistakes, equipment malfunctioning, and terrorist reactions. When an oil spill occurs, it often occurs in tankers, refineries, or pipelines that are being shipped to another facility (Background on Oil Spills). After the oil is spilled onto the salt water, it disperses at a fast rate, which makes oil slick. The oil continues to spread, causing it to weaken and it resembles a rainbow (Background on Oil Spills). When an oil spill occurs on the uppermost layer of water, it “evaporates, is degraded by sunlight, gets consumed by microbes, or washes up on beaches (Begley).

To date, the majority of oil spill operations are rarely capable of recovering and/or treating more than a small portion of the oil which was spilt.12 Within the Gulf of Mexico it was estimated that nearly 4.9 billion barrels of oil were spilt, and approximately half of the oil spilt was 100% methane which and is still within the Gulf today.12 The oil was able to rise to the ocean surface and extended over an estimated 68,000 square miles—this is approximately the same size as the state of Oklahoma.12 Considering the amount of oil spilt, there has been and continues to be a huge impact on marine life, wildlife and their ecosystems, as well as the fishing and tourism industries.

Oil spills have been a major environmental problem that can be hard to detect and expensive to clean up. Since 1969 there have been at least 44 major oil spills of over 420,00 gallons that have had an affect on waters in the United States (Response.restoration.noaa.gov, 2015) The most recent devastating major oil spill was the 2010 Deepwater Horizon offshore oil drilling rig. Nearly 125 million gallons of oil was released into the Gulf of Mexico that wreaked havoc on local economies and wild life with effects that are still lingering to this day (Elliott, 2015). One part of dealing with a major oil spill, such as the Deepwater Horizon, is figuring out how much oil is involved and researches at the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences (VIMS) have developed a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) that is capable of gauging the volume of oil spilled by measuring the thickness of an oil slick (Malmquist, 2015).

More than 700,000 gallons of this dispersant was used above the sea surface and near the well head below the surface. Dispersants break up large globs of oil into smaller droplets to greater bacterial access and easier consumption, potentially increasing the rates of oil degradation. Surface area to volume ratio of oil greatly impacts the rate of bioremediation [1]. These chemicals, however, are highly toxic and have even been banned in the United Kingdom. Studies have shown that two years after the spill, artificial dispersants had increased the oil toxicity by 52 times [5].

The Deep Horizon oil spill caused by British Petroleum (BP) changed the entire economy of the Gulf of Mexico. Approximately 5 million barrels of oils was released from the spill caused by an explosion in the oil platform. The explosion was caused by negligence by BP. In the New York Times article, BP Shortcuts Led to Gulf Oil Spill, Report Says, it states the central problem was with the cement at the base of the well escalating into human and mechanical errors which led to gas to shooting up to the platform and exploding causing a fire that killed 11 people. It took about 87 days to stop the flow of the well but the mess of the event is still affecting many people who inhabit the coast of the Gulf of Mexico and those who use the Gulf as a

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, an estimated 1.3 million gallons (4.9 million liters) of petroleum are spilled into the U.S. waters from vessels and pipelines every year. A major oil spill could easily double that amount. The recent BP oil spill is estimated to take 25 years to clean up (2035). Oil spills usually happen when people make mistakes, equipment breaking down, or natural disasters such as hurricanes. Oil floats on saltwater (the ocean) and usually floats on freshwater (rivers and lakes). Very heavy oil can sometimes sink in freshwater, but this happens very rarely. Oil spills take a long time to recover because of the damage it causes and the only available resources we have. One way that most oil spills are cleaned

The purpose of this report is to investigate the problems of oil spills around the wide globe, and determine the effects made environmentally, socially and economically and possibly find a solution to prevent this matter.

BP Oil Spill which is also known as Gulf of Mexico and Deepwater Horizon oil spill is the largest marine oil spill throughout the history which was caused by an explosion on offshore oil platform namely Deepwater Horizon on 20th April, 2010 located at the Mississippi River delta. British Petroleum (BP) was the principal developer of Macondo Prospects oil field where the accident held. The accident occurred when they were closing the oil well for using it in future prospects. BP claimed that on July 15, 2010 they capped the well by stopping the flow of into the Gulf of Mexico in 86 days. Following the hazards of oil spill U.S. Government held British Petroleum responsible for the

Oil spills happens every year through cleaning of tankers. These spills contribute more petro-pollutants to the ocean than offshore rig blowouts though less attention is generated when compared to blowouts of oil rigs (Nadakavukaren, 2006). Whenever there is a rig blowout or tanker spill, far more attention is attracted as in the case of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The Gulf of Mexico oil spill is an oil spill that occurred in the Gulf of Mexico with oil spilling for three months in 2010. This spill generated a lot of attention and the EPA is monitoring the air, water, sediments and waste management data so as to protect people from this environmental disaster “The EPA has an active oil spill prevention program which focuses