Bp Oil Spill

Americans have been drilling for oil for more than half of their existence. Before the 1850’s oil was of little use and had no market for commerce as there was not one overwhelming use for it. Until around the 1850’s, when technology advanced, with it sparking search for one of the most sought after natural resources that countries would later go to war over, petroleum oil. Early inventions like the kerosene lamp provided a new stable home necessity to live by, increasing the demand for crude oil. This would be met in part by Colonel Edwin Drake, who drilled the first successful oil well in 1858. While Drake’s invention for extracting crude oil from the ground would bring about a new era for industrialization, his “black gold” would bring about an even larger effect, the environmental disasters caused by man. For over one hundred and fifty years of drilling for oil, both on shore and offshore, has led to some of the worst catastrophes to both nature and mankind. While many of these catastrophes have led to the deaths of hundreds of crew members, they have also led to long lasting effects on the environment, local and national economies, legislation, regulations, and human morale. These following effects can be seen in the most recent and most contaminated marine oil spill in history. To the media and public it’s known as the British Petroleum offshore drilling oil spill in 2010.

The goal of our research is to seek possible solutions to reduce the risks of offshore oil spills. To attain this goal, we gathered information from over twenty sources, including “Deepwater Horizon oil” from Wikipedia research and an article from the LA Times.

The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico occurred because “oil from the well shot up and out of the drill column under high pressure, extended on the drilling rig and exploded (wikipedia)”. The rig set on fire and later sank. BP, Transocean, along with government agency employer, all worked hard to avoid further spread of the oil.

The explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that started it all killed 11 people and injured 17. On April 20, 2010, a

Nature is unpredictable and one cannot prepare for every outcome. While nature is a big factor in well breaches, one main factor is the oil companies’ lack of restrictions. This is demonstrated in "National Environmental Health Association Position on Offshore Oil Drilling", where the author states: "An ABC News review of federal records shows that in spite of chronic safety violations, MMS… In a majority of cases in which workers were killed, there was no record of fines paid. When fines were imposed, the maximum penalty was only $25,000" (5). This quote shows how much the oil companies are allowed to get away with. If this were to happen in any other industry, they would have been arrested and forced to pay millions of dollars in fines, but not when it comes to oil because of how much revenue it brings in. The amalgam of these three facts shows the dangers of oil drilling in the extreme environments that oil is found in.

Spills like these cause us to see the bad of oil drilling, especially in the ocean where the oil can spread to marine life in surrounding water. There are many cons with drilling for oil, but there are also many pros. Personally it becomes hard to weigh the pros

Several underlying factors went into play that contributed to the oil crisis. One of those factors was the safety device on the well referred to as a blowout preventor (BOP). The purpose of this device is to stop the flow of oil and gas in case of an emergency situation. Apparently, if the BOP does not operate correctly, the oil and gas can mix causing a disaster for employees, the environment, and the machinery. According to the case study by Crandall, Parnell, and Spillan (2014), someone bumped a control switch that altered the stability of the blowout. With that, no investigation was conducted to make sure the equipment was in a stable state. Another factor was cementing the drill case to make the structure stable. This process involves drilling a hole into the well and inserting a case into the shaft that has to have cement in between. There are two safety aspects of this; one keeps the shaft sealed from hydrocarbon gasses and oil until the extraction takes place, and the other holds the metal casing centered in the bore that uses twenty-one centralizers as an added measure to keep it sturdy. The BP employees only had six steel

The oil spill was the worst environmental disaster the US had ever had because it wasn’t like a hurricane or earthquake that happens in a minute or a day this could take months or years to clean up (Friedman 13). There has been millions

Throughout history, humans have had many adverse effects on the ocean. However, in the past century, a new threat to the ocean has arisen. Oils spills are one of the most dangerous human effects on the ocean, partly because they’re so difficult to reverse after they’ve happened, and because many of the chemicals that get released into the water are extremely toxic to a lot of creatures. Oil spills are usually caused by two ships colliding with each other, a ship colliding with another object, or as in the case of the BP oil spill, an explosion.

The issue of whether offshore oil drilling is a safe operation or not has been arguing for a long time in the United States. ( SPE International, N.D.) Drilling on water started in early 1930s in Louisiana by shallow-draft barges. Nevertheless, the first oil well on water was drilled in 9th of September, 1947 by Kerr-McGee’s unit Tender Assist Drilling (TAD) in the Gulf of Mexico (SPE International, N.D.). A year after year, oil companies used more and more sophisticated equipment to drill on water, but the number of spilled accidents has been rising since 1964 (Ivanovich, and Hays, 2008). After all, while

There were a number of causes for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, most of which had more to do with the human element that with any technology itself. The four biggest ways that humans contributed to the disaster, as explained by journalist David Coburn, was the fact that British Petroleum’s (BP) past success built a sense of complacency, the shifting the burden of proof, the normalization of deviance and the fact that promoters for an industry also serve as that industry’s regulatory enforcers.

Despite the positive development of oil and gas industry in this last decade, there is something more valuable have been put on the line. The environment needs to pay for every single mistake made by the human. One of the greatest mistakes in humankind history is an oceanic oil spill. It has become a major environmental problem that the world is facing right now. History has shown how this problem could go. From the first major commercial spill of 1967 in the United Kingdom, up to the most recent one, at BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig, that leaked thousands barrel of oil into the Gulf of Mexico since April 2010. Most large-scale oil spills have been disastrous and the marine wildlife is still recovering. Hence, the tension for a better cleanup technology increases.

On Aril 20th, 2010, an explosion occurred at BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. The explosion killed 11 workers and created a massive oil spill 5000 feet below the surface that continued for 87 days. The leak would grow to be the worst accidental marine oil spill in history invading 600 miles of coastline, killing thousands of birds, fish, and other marine animals, and invading wetlands and marshes (Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill). Estimates for how much oil was actually released vary but analysis by experts later indicated that approximately 53,000 barrels or 2.27 million gallons of oil leaked out per day. Although the oil rig was leased by BP, a company named Transocean owned and operated the Deepwater Horizon. A third party, Halliburton, performed the cementing procedure, which was cited as one of the two main causes of the explosion (Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill). Attempts at capping the leak failed many times but engineers finally succeeded on July 15 and officially sealed the well on September 19. Containment and cleanup efforts were arranged by BP and the Coast Guard. Incident Command Posts were created in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida to oversee offshore containment and onshore response. Marine protection booms were installed, ships

Deepwater Horizon oil Spill: BP’s drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico had an explosion in April 2010, causing the “largest oil spill catastrophe in the petroleum industry history”. It caused the death of 11 men and injury to several others. “More than 150,000 barrels of crude oil gushed into the sea, every day, for almost 5 months and up to 68,000 square miles of the Gulf 's surface were covered” (1).

Since the past few decades, owning a car has become a necessity in order to commute from one place to another. However, cars do not work automatically, they require fuel. Since the past decade, the petroleum industry has become one of the leading industries impacting the nation’s economy. Oil has become an essential commodity as it is utilized in transportation vehicles, serves as a raw material for manufacturing plastics, and is utilized in homes for cooking. America’s economy is greatly dependent on petroleum as it is the “black gold” of the nation. The considerable significance of oil has led to the drilling of it, which is not only limited to land, but also the oceans. Offshore drilling is a method in which petroleum is extracted from underneath the seabed. It is one of the significant technological advancements in the past few decades. However, the ones who are involved in the process of offshore oil production are humans, and humans tend to make mistakes. In 1969, due to a human error, an oil spill occurred and natural gas, oil, and mud shot up the well and oozed into the ocean (“Offshore Drilling”). The oil spilled led to an environmental disaster which killed thousands of marine animals and distorted the environment. In order to prevent the same error, the government passed a moratorium in 1981, banning more than 85 percent of the country’s oil drilling sites (“Offshore Drilling”). The moratorium restricted the United States to mass-produce its natural resource.