Gulf Oil Spill Research Paper

that the oil is being shipped in are at an enormous risk for having an oil spill. This is because most of the ships that pick up the oil are not doubled hulled. The vast majority

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.

On April 20, 2010 there was an explosion in a drilling rig that was operated and owned by Transocean. The drilling rig’s official name was “Deepwater Horizon Mobile Offshore Drilling Unit” and was in the process of drilling oil in the Macondo Propect oil field, located 40 miles off the Louisiana southeast coast. The cause was reported as a “Wellhead blowout” which cause the rig to explode, dumping more than 200 gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico and resulting in 11 casualties.

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.

How does something like an oil spill even happen? There is a long list of reasons of why this could happen. A common reason is a careless mistake that could've been avoided. There has been cases where oil tanker ships have actually ran into other ships which caused the tanker to leak oil into the surrounding waters. For example, in 2014 750 barrels of crude oil was leaked into the Lower Mississippi River because a tanker ran into a towboat. Another very common way oil spills happen are through and machine malfunction or explosion. This is what happened in the BP Deepwater oil spill. A explosion damaged one of the rigs and they completely lost all ability to control the rig. The fire burned for over 36 hours until the rig sank.

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill or the BP oil spill refers to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico which flowed for three months in 2010. The spill was a result of the explosion of Deepwater Horizon, which drilled on the BP-operated Macondo Prospect. The explosion killed 11 men working on the platform and injured 17 others (Summarized from Wikipedia article on: “Deepwater Horizon oil spill” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill )

The only argument one can come up with is that an oil spill is a sad side effect of a very necessary oil industry. The oil industry plays a role in almost all machine based industries. It has arguably become the most sought after source of energy. Without the oil industry, much of the world would come to a halt. The energy based market would plummet. So, if minor oil spills and occasional large spills are required to keep the market intact and the energy output in the world consistent, technological enthusiasts will allow it. Even though we can always bring up the importance of the oil industry, on the contrary, an understanding and reasonable person would argue that since our world is being harmed by the oil, its acquiring process, and how the supply is slowly depleting, these oil conglomerates should stop trying to pretend that everything is and stop milking the oil industry till it fails and as the world have nothing to fall back

Every day individuals take the true beauty of our nation by visiting recreational areas along with beaches. Oil spills create nothing, but negative effects on the areas that it happens in. Many plants and animals are affected by this negative disaster which sickness the animals or some even die from it. Maybe if more time and money was spent working on having more efficient renewable energy sources than digging up a source of fuel that will eventually run out we would not have as much of a problem.

The effect of oil spill is usually calculated in terms of damage on the environment, aftermath on marine species, and effect on the tourism and fishery industries. The impact on human health is less known relatively. The financial costs associated with oil spills are also a factor. Arguably, it is a less serious consequence of an Oil Spill, however the financial costs have the potential to bankrupt an organization. BP suffered major financial loss as a result of the Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico. They have paid up to $1.5 billion in an effort to settle various claims and compensation. (BP, n.d)

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

in the winter and the ecological damage was not as big as Santa Barbara or many

On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, located in the Gulf of Mexico exploded killing 11 workers and injuring 17. The oil rig sank a day-and-a-half later. The spill was referred to as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, BP oil spill, Gulf of Mexico oil spill, and BP oil disaster. It was first said that little oil had actually leaked into the ocean but a little over a month later the estimate was 12,000-19,000 barrels of crude oil being leaked per day. Many attempts were made to stop the leak but all failed until they capped the leak on July 15, 2010, and on September 19 the federal government declared the well “effectively dead.” In the three months that it took to finally put a stop the leak, 4.9 million barrels of oil were

The BP oil spill was one of the worst oil spills to ever happen in the US. There are many factors that caused this horrible spill to happen; to be exact there were eight failures of the oilrig that caused this disaster. The first failure was the cement at the bottom of the borehole was not sealed properly. This caused the oil and gas to start leaking into the pipe leading to the surface of the rig. The second failure was that the valve leading to the surface was sealed improperly with cement. In addition, there were two mechanical valves, which failed to stop the leak of gas and oil. The crew was also to blame because they did pressure tests, which they did not read properly. This made the crew believe the oil well was under control when it was not. The crew also did not spot the leak before the explosion; there was an increase in pressure inside the well fifty minutes before the explosion but the crew did not interpret it as a leak. Next, about eight minutes before the rig exploded, mud and gas began to come out onto the floor of the rig. The crew tried to stop this by activating the blowout preventer, which is at the top of the well, however this caused the blowout preventer to malfunction. The rig had side vents that were suppose to release this mud and gas, but instead it was diverted to a device that separates only small amounts of mud and gas. This device quickly became overwhelmed and flammable gas was sent all over the rig. The alarm on the rig should have sounded

Oil spills can impact the environment greatly. Since the oil boats are on the ocean if the break and start to leak it goes into the ocean where it can harm the ocean and those that make their home in it. “That spill caused an immediate and significant impact to the ecosystem, with sightings of birds and turtles washed up on beaches covered with oil, as well as an increase in the deaths of other marine life” (Sinclair, 2017). The oil spill in 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico was the biggest since Deepwater Horizon. It caused harm to the ecosystem around it because technology came in so it could pump oil out of the ground under the ocean. There is no way to know the impact that oil spill and really every oil spill has had on the marine ecosystem.

Out of all of these ways, oil spills can cause a noticeably excessive amount of damage to the ocean. Although only 12% of the oil entering the sea is caused by spills, they can deteriorate ocean life and environment more than any other pollution. One gallon of used oil spilled into the ocean, which contains toxic chemicals and heavy metals severely dangerous to the micro-organism at the base of the food chain, can cause an eight-acre layer