Essay Exxon Oil Spill

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.

On April 20, 2010 the largest accidental marine oil spill in human history took place in the Gulf of Mexico. The incident resulting in methane gas was released and exploded killing 11 rig workers and having a major impact on our marine wildlife.

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.

To begin, the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill was a man-made environmental disaster that occurred in 1989. On March 24, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker struck Bligh Reef and spilled 260,000 barrels of crude oil into the waters of Prince William Sound in Alaska (Piatt, Lensick, Butler, Kendziorek & Nysewander, 1990). Eventually, this oil spread across 30,000 km² of water, damaging ecosystems and marine life along the way (Piatt, 1990). Evidently, this oil spill is considered to be one of the most destructive man-made environmental disasters in history (Dimdam, 2013).

Twenty seven years ago, tragedy struck the cold Pacific waters of Bligh reef in Alaska. March 24, 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill took place. It was a devastating and horrific event that took more life than you can could count within the same hour. It is said to be the cause of mischeck and improper equipment supply. The cause was so big, no one noticed it. Such a massacre of wildlife could have been avoided if only they took the time to care.

An estimated amount of 206 gallons were let loose in the water.This oil spill has made the records of being one of the largest oil spills that has ever occurred. It happened when an oil well approximately a mile below the surface.blew out. In addition, this caused an explosion on the BP Horizon rig that killed 11 people. Experts made many attempts to stop the oil flow but it took time to reach success. However, every minute passing by is a very crucial one. Within as little as one day 2.5 million gallons were released into the water. The well was capped on July15, 2010. Meaning that the oil leaked for a grand total of 85 days. Resulting in 572 miles of the Gulf Shore being covered in oil. Not to mention the hundreds of animals found and taken into care due to the oil spill. Of course long term effects won’t be able to be further approached until time passes and experts are able to have obtained enough data throughout the years. However, experts have concluded that the damage from this oil spill will not be completely over with until years to come. Still today clumps of oil are being found coming from the shore. The oil is not the only thing to worry about however. Chemicals still remain in the environment and therefore can still affect the nature and can result in a chemical reaction which may be harmful. If parts of the oil are not able to reach oxygen it can just be a big toxic reservoir damaging the environment waiting to cause trouble.The only way to remove things like this is mechanically which only further destroys the habitat. Al in all it is a lose lose

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

The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill occurred on April 20, 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico. This oil spill was the largest spill in history in front of the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989. This oil spill released about 4.9 million barrels of oil into the ocean. This spill not only wreck havoc on the marine life but also the economic players that depended on ocean such as fisherman, tourism, and offshore drilling located along the gulf coast. Along will the spill the oil rig which was named Deepwater Horizon also went up in flames. This proved that the issue went far beyond just an oil rig that blew a line. Since this oil spill had drastic impacts all along the coast, BP which was the most liable for this incident faced criminal charges based on what happened. BP which knew the risks of deep ocean drilling failed to take the necessary safety procedures to reduce the risks of such incident occurring, thus was the reasoning behind placing most of the fault on them and not the other companies. The lack of regulatory oversight led to the issues and cost-cutting procedures opened the rig up to possible malfunctions like the one that occurred. During the spill into the gulf, BP sealed the well with cement which seemed to stop a majority of the oil from escaping the well. BP also recognized that the well was “dead” which was proven wrong when scientists still could conclude was leaking minor amounts of oil into the ocean. This spill not only proved to be harmful to the environment but also

oil spill happened five years ago and nearly 5 barrels of oil was spilt into the Gulf of Mexico. The oil spill was caused from an explosion through the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig about 40 miles off the coast of Louisiana. The main effect from this oil spill was the losses of the animals. Causing many to almost go extinct. As a result from the oil spill the earth has had—losses from pollution, the cost, and the damage of people.

Gill, Duane A., J. Steven Picou, and Liesel A. Ritchie. "The Exxon Valdez and BP oil spills: a

The catastrophe with the Deepwater Horizon was horrible. Eleven people lost their lives that day, and marine wildlife was affected along with other economic issues for anglers and tourism industries. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill had devastating effects on the local environment and on the public perception of offshore oil drilling. Five million barrels of oil over a three-month period flooded the Gulf of Mexico. The Macondo oil spill, which is what it became called, had an overwhelming impact on the environment. Moreover, oil was scattered over 1300 miles of shoreline from Texas to Florida. In an attempt to clean up the spill, there was incalculable damage was done to fish and other wildlife, marshes, and estuaries. As bad as the Macondo

On April 28th, 2010 cleanup crews were rushing to clean up a huge oil spill on the Gulf of Mexico. This spill occurred because of an oil rig explosion that took place on April 20th. The oil spill was threatening miles of coast line in four different states, and not to mention marine wild life that live in those waters. This oil spill soon became the worst oil spill the United States had ever seen. There were 126 workers on board the oil rig when it exploded, most of the workers escaped, but eleven were missing but then confirmed dead. The cause of the explosion is being investigated. Since the explosion, experts estimated a total of 210,000 gallons of oil were spilling into the gulf. Experts are also worried about the sea life and how

The first most significant fact about the Exxon disaster is that more than 300,000 birds and 2,600 otters were killed because of the oil spill. The reason for this large number of animals being killed was because of the ingestion of toxic chemicals, starvation, and because of hypothermia when trying to swim through the oil causing the oil to soaked feathers, which than cause the birds to lose their insulating capacity. The second significant fact is that the cleanup that they were trying to do was futile because when they would clean the oil up more oil would come back cause only 3% of the oil to be clean. The third most significant fact is that with the steam cleaners and pressure washing only drove the oil deep into the ground and rocky

Recently, oil spill management has become a serious concern and subsequently, it has become a big issue as it takes a large, specifically trained team effort to solve the devastating problem. It also requires consistent efforts of the workforce. The Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico was perhaps another major contributing factor to highlighting the need for Oil Spill Management to be addressed. The director of the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement, Michael Bromwich stated that this oil spill proved that oil and gas organizations were not prepared to deal with oil spills. (Merolli, 2010).

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).