Bp Oil Spill Research Paper

Oil covered everything: beaches, animals, plants, bottoms of boats. Approximately 205.8 million gallons of oil leaked into the ocean and toward the Louisiana shoreline. To put the amount in perspective, that oil could be used to drive a Toyota Prius around the earth 184,181 times (Repanich). All of this pollution and destruction because of one singular company: British Petroleum. Needless to say, the image of BP was tarnished because of this. What can a company do to come back from such a serious setback? This was the question that was faced by the company in 2010 (when the spill occurred), and is still being wrestled with today. By analyzing BP’s “Commitment to the Gulf” ad campaign, the brand’s desired identity is made very apparent. When it comes to oil, nearly all consumers are involved. However, BP does take specific steps in order to narrow down a target audience when it comes to advertising its product. Despite the hardships faced by BP stemming from the spill, consumers still have an addiction to oil. BP, the fourth largest oil company in the world (“Biggest Oil”), has such a firm hold on consumer society that it is a necessity in today’s consumer landscape. By pushing the brand’s identity to its target audience, BP used branding to overcome a severe controversy and rebuild the image it hoped to convey to consumers.

On April 20th 2010 an explosion on an oil ridge of the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, was the cause of the greatest environmental disaster in history of the United States. This explosion took the lives of eleven men who were working on the ridge, and also ruptured an oil line, which dumped more than 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. This oil spill significantly affected the wildlife of the gulf coast, killing hundreds of fishes, birds, and reptile that call the gulf coast home. The spill also affected global supply chain for major industries.

On April 20, 2010, one of BP’s drilling wells below the Gulf of Mexico exploded and caused a disastrous oil spill. Thousands of barrels of crude oil flowed into the gulf every day, causing widespread pollution in the Gulf of Mexico (Law Brain, n.d). The habitats of many bird species are threatened by this oil spill.

Imagine 2,500 to 68,000 square miles covered in 4.9 million barrels of oil. No, imagine being covered in 4.9 million barrels of oil. Picture yourself gasping for air in an ocean filled with oil. That is exactly what birds, sea turtles, dolphins, and other animals had to do after the most catastrophic oil spill of all time occurred on April 20, 2010.

With all of the disasters mankind has caused to this earth, one might wonder if things like earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, etc. are nothing more than a response to our actions. The BP oil spill, which took place in the Gulf of Mexico, is easily recognizable as the worst oil spill disaster in American history. More than 200 million gallons of crude oil leaked into the Gulf of Mexico for 87 days total. The entire 16,000 miles of the Gulf coastline were affected. This included Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi. The oil may have stopped gushing in 2010, but it has yet to stop washing up on the shore.

Yes, losing human life was bad enough already, but we also lost a lot of oil and most importantly the spill effected the marine life. The fish, turtles and birds that were in the area, were all drenched in the oil, majority of it didn’t survive. The fish that have survived, where infected/affected by the chemicals. As we all know oil does not stay in one area, it spreads like butter on the hot skillet, effecting even larger marine life area than expected. Obviously BP and people responsible for the spill have faced numerous fine and conducted numerous operations to clean up the mess, but it is almost impossible. As time progressed, some oil eventually sunk to the bottom, which effected coral and food that fish eat. According to CNN, “Scientists continue to study environmental impacts, but five years after the spill, the long-term negative effects remain unclear and are, in many cases, highly disputed.”(Griffin et al., 2015, para.

This disaster of the BP oil spill has caused many deaths: 64 mammals, 2,919 birds, and 489 sea turtles according to National Wildlife Federation and these numbers are going to continue to rise year after year till all the oil is cleaned up. Also, the Gulf is home to endangered species. Kemp’s ridley sea turtles are currently listed as endangered, and could go to threatened in the next couple years. Another example is the Bluefin Tuna which is labeled as endangered and could send them to extinction due to the massive oil spill. This is one dire effect that is hurting our ecosystem, and this same instance happened in Alaska with the Exxon Valdez oil spill. A great example of how gruesome the oil has taken on wildlife, look at Fig. B where a there is an oil-soaked pelican. I believe the world should change its main source of oil to a different less destructing fuel.

Whenever a man made creation harms the surrounding area, it is usually due to faulty human design or human error, as it was present in the BP oil spill. Similar cases were the Fukushima/Chernobyl Nuclear reactors. Both reactors similarly were a cause of human negligence. They underplayed the possibility of a large disaster occurring. All three disasters affected mostly people who were not directly involved with the blast. People had to be compensated for the drastic change in their lives, however, similarly in all cases, that was not enough. People still struggled to return back to everyday life as the conditions were no longer the same and various negative factors kept playing a constant role in helping them move backward. Fortunately, though, all three disasters were cleaned up to a point where people could start living their post-disaster life, maybe not to the full extent, but still moving the right direction. All these situations only took place because

King, Rawle O. 2013. Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Disaster. 1st ed. [Place of publication not identified]: Bibliogov.

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

The leak after it was fixed was the size of Kansas (Friedman 100). There was 47,829 local, state, and federal responders to help clean up the oil (Friedman 100). There was 9,700 vessels that helped clean up the oil spill which were 6,500 government and commercial vessels and 3,200 vessels of opportunity (Friedman 100). 3.8 million feet of hard boom and 9.7 million feet of soft boom was used during the clean up to clean up the oil (Friedman 100). There was 127 surveillance aircraft used to help with the cleanup (Friedman 101). There was 1.4 million barrels of liquid waste collected and 92 ton of solid waste recovered (Friedman 101). They recovered more than 800,000 barrels of oily water from the Ocean and Coastal areas (Friedman 101). The oil spill effected the fish population by a large amount (Brown 18). The largest US oil spill in history is the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, which impacted ecosystems and residents of the Gulf Coast (Peres 1208). In 3 months over 200 million gallons of crude oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico (Peres 1208). The BP controlled burned 1.84 million gallons of chemicals to break up the oil (Peres 1208). The clean-up employed several thousand workers (Peres 1208). The

USDC (2012) reports that on April 20, 2010 examinations of the world concentrated on an oil platform in the Gulf, around 50 miles off the Louisiana coastline. The mobile drilling unit Deepwater Horizon, which was being made used to drill an experimental well for BP Exploration and Production, Inc. (BP), violently blew up, ignited and at some point sank, tragically eliminating 11 employees. However that was just the start of the catastrophe. Oil and various other compounds from the rig and the well started streaming unabated around one mile below the area. Preliminary efforts to cap the wells were not successful, and for 87 days oil ejected unmonitored and uncontrolled into the Gulf. Oil soon enough covered a huge location of hundreds of square miles, and held by the tides and currents reached the coastline, contaminating beaches, bays, estuaries and marshes from the Florida panhandle to west of the Mississippi River delta. At the height of the spill, around 37 % of the open water in the Gulf was closed to fishing.

The e Deepwater Horizon oil spill at the Macondo well began on April 20, 2010, in the Gulf of Mexico on the BP-operated Macondo Prospect. An explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig on 20 April 2010 killed 11 people and caused almost 5 million barrels of oil to flow into the Gulf of Mexico. The spill covered 68,000 square miles of land and sea and triggered a response effort involving the use of nearly 2 million gallons of dispersant chemicals (Pallardy). Considered the largest accidental marine oil spill in history, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill (DHOS) resulted in widespread environmental and economic damage, the exact nature of which is only beginning to be understood (Shultz 59). This paper will address the causes of this unmitigated ecological disaster and discuss steps that need to be taken to prevent a similar disaster from occurring again.

The BP Oil Spill An Introductory Background - One of the most controversial ecological disasters in recent history focused on multinational British Petroleum and their Gulf of Mexico Operations. The Deepwater Oil Disaster began on April 20, 2010 with an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon Oil platform, killing 11, injuring 17. It was not until July 15th, however, that the leak was stopped by capping the wellhead, after releasing almost 5 million barrels (206 million gallons) of crude oil, or 53,000 barrels per day into the Gulf of Mexico. It was not until September 19th that the relief well process was complete and the U.S. Government, EPA, and Coast Guard agencies declared the well breach effectively stopped (Cavnar, 2010).

Peter has been working with the Bigness Oil Company’s local affiliate for several years, and he has established a strong, trusting relationship with Jesse, manager of the local facility. The facility, on Peter’s recommendations, has followed all of the environmental regulations to the letter, and it has a solid reputation with the state regulatory agency. The local facility receives various petrochemical products via pipelines and