Impact Of The On The Oil Industry And Government Agencies

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.

After a long debate with the mangers of the rig, it was determined that the rig had a malfunction and overdue for a lot of updates and maintenance, but BP representatives did not believe it, and pushed the rig to its limits. The rig operated normally for some time, at least that’s what the BP representative were thinking, but they were wrong. The rig could not handle the pressure and it busted. Due to the negligence the rig eventually blew up, spilling a lot of oil. “The oil spill, the worst in maritime history, dumped 4.2 million barrels of oil, and officials released 1.8 million gallons of Corexit, a chemical depressant used to break up the oil, into the Gulf before the well was sealed.”(Marsa, 2016, para.

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.

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 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

The BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill tells the tragic story of what happened on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig back in April 2010. The rig, leased from another vendor, was digging a well on the Macondo slope in the Gulf when it exploded and fatally killed eleven employees and injured seventeen others (Crandall, Parnell, & Spillan, 2014). Not to mention, five million barrels of oil spilled into the sea causing an environmental issue that lasted more than ninety days.

On April 20, 2010 the British Petroleum Deep Water Horizon (DWH) drilling rig exploded and subsequently sank in the waters of Gulf of Mexico. The result was the largest leakage of crude in the United States to date (Middlebrook et al.,

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

The article “Blame For DeepWater Horizon” makes a very good point that BP should be the one to blame, BP reportedly opted for the quickest, rather than the safer and more secure approaches (Meigs). It might be true that BP had opted for the cheaper process however the reason the explosion occurred was because a very important structure called the B.O.P. (Blow Out Preventer) was not properly maintained (Meigs). People say that BP should be the ones to blame but the evidence above shows that because the B.O.P. (Blow Out Preventer) was not working because it was not properly maintained and because the MMS was not doing the required monthly check ups. The fact that BP took the cheaper process shouldn't affect how the rig should work, plus that is the job for TransOcean they should know how to run their rig not BP, they are the ones who know how to use an oil. After looking at this section of the essay anyone would say that TransOcean is true the one to blame because they could not maintain the well-being of the B.O.P. (Blow Out Preventer) and because of that, the great explosion of the rig took the lives of many people and many animals that were

The Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico exploded on April 20th, 2010, pouring nearly 5 million barrels into the sea over a three months’ span. Endangering marine wildlife, as well as workers that were injured during the explosion. There were a 126 people on the rig, twenty-eight workers in total were hurt, leaving eleven that were fatally injured, while the other 17 were severely injured.

Since the Deepwater Horizon explosion happened nearly six years ago there have been countless reports on the explosion and scientific studies on what cause it as well as its impact. There have also been investigations into the internal workers of BP and they concerns about the rig prior to the explosion. This case brings up social, political and environmental issues to light and the approaches BP had to each of these issues.

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.

The Deepwater Horizon was one of the largest offshore oil-drilling rigs in the world. During its more than nine years of service, all of which were under lease to the British Petroleum Company, numerous inspections were conducted by the federal Minerals Management Service (MMS). The exact number of inspection cannot be verified due to lack of proper recordkeeping and supporting documentation. The number of inspections has varied between eighty-three and eighty-eight, with as many as forty-eight being conducted since January, 2005. (Kunzelman & Burke, 2010). One of the safety violations documented during an inspection was on the blowout valve that failed causing the fireball that ignited the drilling platform. The question arises as to

On April 20, the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico led to the largest accidental release of oil into marine waters in history. As a result, a huge loss of money and life was caused and affected serious environmental damage to wild animals and water pollution. BP was accused of their irresponsibility that it took 87 days before the well was closed and sealed. BP’s shares

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).