ntroduction There’s an estimated three and a half thousand oil platforms that spread throughout the central planning area in the Gulf of Mexico with the majority of them no further than 50 miles away from the shores of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Across the shorelines is home to the wetlands, a paradise ecosystem for many species that live there. Much of it is inaccessible and untouched from human activity. In 2010 an event that caught the attention of almost everyone occurred. An explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oilrig that caused a huge oil leak producing devastating effects caused by a simple mistake that should not of happened in the first place. Because of this, several consequence’s had occurred from it and many research …show more content…
GDP per capita is an approximation of the value of goods produced per person which can also be known as the average income per person which is $50,700 (2012 est.) placing the US 14th in the world in GDP per capita. The United States government has a constitutional republic where a legitimately elected head of state and other officials are representatives for the people and they must govern according to existing constitutional law that limits the power of the government's from the citizens Magnitude of Problem For 87 days oil spilled out of the failed BP Deepwater Horizon blowout preventer at an estimated 5,000 barrels per day. The enormous magnitude of this problem is almost impossible to measure due to the limited amount data available collect as only a significant amount that was released into the sea actually surfaced. As the majority of the oil has either spread throughout the Gulf of Mexico beneath the surface via currents or settled down at the bottom of the sea bed 5,000 feet below surface. The well is 5,000 meters below depth so and only a fraction of the oil that rose to the surface and what got washed ashore. At the time these calculations were made (July 14, 2010) approximately 50% of the oil
The explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that started it all killed 11 people and injured 17. On April 20, 2010, a
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster that took place in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010 is the largest oil spill to have ever occurred in USA waters. As efforts to hold the current spill continues, the higher chances of clean up damage compensation technique, and also enhancing prevention of future oil spill responses and recovery. The rig was owned and under the operation of Transocean, a Switzerland-based offshore drilling firm, and leased to BP plc, one of the biggest oil firms in the world. The explosion and fire that led to eleven fatalities and several injuries took place despite specialized oil spill prevention equipment also known as a blowout preventer, which is designed to avert such a kind of disaster. The quantity
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 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
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 largest unintentional marine oil spill in human history took place in the Gulf of Mexico in the year 2010. The event resulted after methane gas was released and exploded in the BP-owned Macondo exploration well on April 20, 2010. The fire continued for 36 hours and the oil drilling rig, Deepwater Horizon, sank on April 22, 2010. This event led to the loss of 11 lives and the spill of about 4.9 million barrels of oil. The oil spill affected as much as 68,000 square miles. After long efforts, the well was capped on July 15, 2010 and sealed two months later on September 19, 2010.
The Deepwater Horizon was a drilling rig explosion that occurred April 20, 2010, and ended in a fire. The rig was owned and operated by Transocean, and the drilling was done by BP in the Macondo Prospect oil field (McGill & Schwartz, 2010). Due to drilling below sea level, the explosion caused a fire and resulted in the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon, the death of 11 people and injured 17 others. The dangerous hydrocarbon gas that surrounded the blowout preventor malfunction, which caused the gas to encounter an ignition source was the cause of the explosion, and it led to massive oil spills in the offshore of the Gulf of Mexico (Crandall et al., 2014). It was considered to be the largest accidental oil spill in the world and an environmental
BP, formerly known as British Petroleum, is the third largest oil and gas producer in the world, producing almost 3.8 million barrels per day. BP was founded in 1908 by William Knox D’Arcy in London, United Kingdom. The company operates worldwide in several sectors of the oil and gas industry such as generating low carbon energy, moving oil and gas, and off and onshore oil and gas extraction (BP, 2014). However, the offshore Deepwater Horizon oil spill that happened on April 20th, 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico was one of the greatest oil spills that took place in history. The disaster caused the loss of the lives of 11 workers, severely injuring 17 workers, and the aftermath had a great impact on the environment in the Gulf of Mexico.
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).
Because of the gravity of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the enormity of the situation, the government was obliged to step in and investigate. According to Ososfky, “the spill takes place at the intersection of legal regimes governing offshore activities and those governing oil spills and other disasters.
As of March 28, there were still 217 vessels and 2,349 personnel working on cleaning up the spill. 3,474 kilometres of containment and absorbent boom were deployed against the spreading oil slick on August 2nd. 411 in-situ burns conducted (which burned 265,450 barrels of oil) and 1.4 million barrels of liquid waste collected.
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
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).
When presented with this project during class, my group and I knew it would be a challenge, but knew with the right topic we could easily overcome the challenge. We thought long and hard about what topic we wanted to research. It had to be something that was interesting, impactful and well known. We thought of controversial topics, headliner news stories, and topics with familiarity. In the end, we chose to use British Petroleum’s (BP) Oil Spill in the Gulf Coast during 2010. The BP Oil Spill was a crisis and the BP company responded to the event with socially responsible leadership style. We ultimately chose it because it was interesting.