Offshore Oil Drilling and the Deepwater Horizon Spill of the Gulf of Mexico

Offshore drilling has become an essential part of today’s oil production and demand for energy. With the growth of population comes the increasing demand for oil. The oil industry today, is one of the most used providers of energy. Today in the 20th century the majority of the population in America has a car and cars needs gas to run. The oil reserves in the earth that are easily accessible via land are starting to run dry and are becoming harder to find. This is why we have begun to see more and more offshore oil drills. Although there are benefits of offshore drilling such as profit, lower gas prices, and becoming less dependent on foreign oil. There are also many drawbacks in which if something were to go wrong, the mistake would be catastrophic impacting the environment, the nature, and have trickling effects all around the world.

As technology evolved, offshore drilling moved progressively into deeper water and farther away from oceanfront. In 1958, Richfield Oil Company developed the first drilling man-made island in Rincon where there was a substantial amount of oil was found. With the mounting pressure and high demand to produce more oil and gas, geologists studied the anticlinal trends and discovered the abundance of oil productive in Rincon Island extended underneath the Santa Barbara Channel.

America must wean itself off of dependence on foreign oil, and one valid solution to this problem is offshore oil drilling and production. America’s economy is heavily based on petroleum, as though it is the nation’s blood; a necessity for survival. About 25% of oil produced in the U.S. comes from offshore rigs. Most of the U.S. coastline has been off limits for oil drilling since the early 1980s. Due to environmental concerns after an oil spill off the coast of California in 1969, an offshore drilling moratorium was imposed. Since then, the U.S. has amplified its energy consumption to where it uses nearly 25% of the world's oil. Meanwhile, the U.S. produces about 10% of the world's oil. That has made the U.S. heavily reliant on imported

“Rockefeller built an empire in a world without automobiles, finding profit by selling kerosene and lamp oil. By the turn of the century, the internal-combustion engine was generating demand for a new product: gasoline.”4 In comes the Lone Star State, to solve the worlds energy problem “Jan. 10, 1901, the modern American oil industry began on Spindletop Hill, south of Beaumont, Texas.”4 The big hill, located 4 miles south of Beaumont, Texas was formed millions of years ago with a giant underground dome made of salt. A man named Anthony Lucas from Austria, a former salt miner, was baffled at this big hill, which was actually only 12 feet high in elevation over the prairie lands. Lucas contacted some Pennsylvania oilmen for some help. The Pennsylvanian’s travel to Texas, surveyed a nice spot on the hill, and on October 27, 1900 the gusher was spudded. Spindletop had been drilled before, but never by a rotary drilling rig. Drilling is difficult at first. “There is little in the way of rock at the surface in that part of the world. Instead, oil wildcatters had to drill through several hundred feet of sand,”5 Due to the high sand content the well continually caved in, and one of the Pennsylvanians decided to try mud instead of water to help. This advancement changed the game for drilling, and is still used to drill wells today. The “Lucas Gusher” will erupt more than 150 feet into the air. It begins flowing at an astounding 100,000 barrels per day from a depth of 1,010

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

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

The biggest oil spill in history started on April 20th, 2010 by an oil ring called the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico. The oil ring was owned by an offshore oil drilling company called Transocean and they were leasing the oil ring to British Petroleum. The oil well was located on a seabed 4,993 feet below the surface of the ocean. On April 20th, a surge of natural gas penetrated through the concrete core and went up the Deepwater rig’s riser which led to the drilling platform catching fire, and exploding. This caused eleven people to die and injured another seventeen people. During this oil spill more than 200 million gallons of oil was pumped over a period of 87 days into the Gulf of Mexico until the well was capped in July, 2010. A study in the blowout preventer showed that huge blades known as blind shear rams

“If we do nothing, it doesn 't matter how we feel. And that’s exactly what oil companies are banking on: out of sight, out of mind” (Hart, 24). Petroleum is a naturally occurring oil found under deep layers of rock (“oil drilling”). Oil drilling is when a pipe penetrates through these several layers of rock in order to reach the petroleum oil underneath. This oil can then be purified or turned into gasoline for energy use. Offshore oil drilling, like its’ name describes, is specifically oil drilling on the ocean floor, away from a shore line. Offshore oil drilling provides one of the most consumed American energy resources, but also provides a risk to the environment (Crawford et al. 2&7). The United State’s

The nature of the laws in offshore drilling and oil spills intersect with the justice system in its application. The Department of Interior’s Mineral Management Service as well as the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) along with other agencies such as the Coast Guard, all have regulatory systems for drilling. However, according to the National Commissions report, the implementation of the regulations, coupled with inadequate industry safety culture, enhances the chances of blow outs, and by extension environmental justice impacts. BOEMRE was responsible for leasing the oil exploration tract to BP. The US Coast Guard is responsible for determination of the fitness of the rig and leakage control mechanisms. Environmental Protection Agency have multiple functions including the coordination or local and national response teams. The Federal Emergency Management Administration controls the

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

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.

This paper is about the effects of offshore drilling particularly it discusses “oil spills caused by offshore drilling in California”. These oil spills that are caused by offshore drilling affect the environment in the long run. Even some of these impacts on the environment by oil spills last for decades (Larry West). For example when an oil slick arrives at the beach from a huge oil spill then it sticks to each grain of the sand and every rock. So if this oil is absorbed by the forests or fibrous plants etc. then it can make the whole area unsuitable for wildlife. Moreover if this oil spills stops and sinks in the surface of the water then these oil spills damage the fragile ecosystems under water and can prove extremely dangerous to marine life (Jennifer Horton).

There was also an immediate response by the United States congress in the legislation governing oil and gas operations. According to a Congressional Research Service report (Hagerty & Jonathan , 2014), the 111th Congress had held over ’60 hearings’

Currently, the conventional approach is to aggressively explore and develop new fields. This has led to a growth in drilling deeper wells and looking to ‘off-shore’ sites for new production of ‘light’ crude. However, as recent events in the Gulf of Mexico demonstrate with the British Petroleum incident and the resulting clean-up costs and loss of credibility, this approach has risks. It

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.