The Importance Of The BP Oil Spill

Oil covered everything: beaches, animals, plants, bottoms of boats. Approximately 205.8 million gallons of oil leaked into the ocean and toward the Louisiana shoreline. To put the amount in perspective, that oil could be used to drive a Toyota Prius around the earth 184,181 times (Repanich). All of this pollution and destruction because of one singular company: British Petroleum. Needless to say, the image of BP was tarnished because of this. What can a company do to come back from such a serious setback? This was the question that was faced by the company in 2010 (when the spill occurred), and is still being wrestled with today. By analyzing BP’s “Commitment to the Gulf” ad campaign, the brand’s desired identity is made very apparent. When it comes to oil, nearly all consumers are involved. However, BP does take specific steps in order to narrow down a target audience when it comes to advertising its product. Despite the hardships faced by BP stemming from the spill, consumers still have an addiction to oil. BP, the fourth largest oil company in the world (“Biggest Oil”), has such a firm hold on consumer society that it is a necessity in today’s consumer landscape. By pushing the brand’s identity to its target audience, BP used branding to overcome a severe controversy and rebuild the image it hoped to convey to consumers.

On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded. It was positioned over the Macondo oil well when a burst of natural gas broke through the concrete core that had been used to seal off the oil well for later use. Once released by the fractured core the gas made its way up the riser and onto the platform, where it ignited killing eleven workers and injuring seventeen others. The highest-ranking BP supervisors on board the oil rig known as “Well site leaders” observed indications that the well was not secure, but did not take appropriate actions in order to remedy the problem. If the supervisors had done something, they may have been able to save the eleven lives lost that day. A similar accident happened to the Caspian Sea at another BP oil well in September 2008. Both cores were too weak to withstand the pressure because the concrete mixture contained Nitrogen gas used to accelerate the curing process (Brennan, 2013). Two days later the rig capsized and in the process knocked over the riser they had filled with drilling mud in order to stop the flow of gas and oil. Now with nothing holding it back the oil, it began pouring out of the hole. The oil that was being released everyday peaked at around 60,000 barrels of oil in one day. The well discharged oil for eighty-seven days before their attempts to repair the hole were successful. In the end, nearly five million barrels of oil were released into the Gulf of Mexico.

Understanding how oil spills often happen makes it easy to see that not only are they messy and dangerous, they are also inevitable. They can be lessened though. For years we have been told that drilling for oil was safe and that the chances of a catastrophic oil spill happening was too small to worry about. This was

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

April 20th, 2010 an explosion occurred that created what would be considered one of the worst oil spills in U.S. history. The Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig was being leased by BP Oil Company and was located only about 40 miles off of the coast of Louisiana. A surge of natural gas that made its way to the Horizon rig’s platform ignited, causing the rig to capsize and sink, thus breaking risers that were being used to counteract the large amount of pressure from oil and natural gasses (Pallardy, 2015). The explosion killed 11 workers and injured 17 others and caused a massive leak in the oil wellhead. It took 87 days for the wellhead to be closed and it is estimated that over that time around 210 million gallons

On April 20, 2010, a cement seal of an oil well malfunctioned, leading to the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oilrig. Acknowledged as one the worst accidental oil spills, killing 11 people. The BP pipe discharged oil for 87 days following the failure. It is estimated 3.19 million barrels of oil had leaked into the Gulf of Mexico. Even though this incident happened 7 years ago, it is still relevant because there has been more insight from years of analyzing what went wrong, as well as more effective ways to handle the aftermath of a situation like that. This is an interesting situation because it is a two-part failure; of course, the initial equipment glitch, as well as the insufficiency measures they took to

On April 20, 2010, British Petroleum's Deepwater Horizon platform exploded and sunk into the Gulf of Mexico. The resulted in a raging fire and an eventual estimate of 4.9 million barrels of crude oil and 1.7×1011 g of methane gas [1] being released into the Gulf from an uncapped wellhead in the sea's surface. It took BP nearly three months to cap the wellhead end the influx of oil into the Gulf [2]. This incident became the largest accidental oil spill in US history. The resultant leak of oil spanned numerous habitats, from the sediment on the sea floor, to the coastal areas some states [3].

The Deep Horizon oil spill caused by British Petroleum (BP) changed the entire economy of the Gulf of Mexico. Approximately 5 million barrels of oils was released from the spill caused by an explosion in the oil platform. The explosion was caused by negligence by BP. In the New York Times article, BP Shortcuts Led to Gulf Oil Spill, Report Says, it states the central problem was with the cement at the base of the well escalating into human and mechanical errors which led to gas to shooting up to the platform and exploding causing a fire that killed 11 people. It took about 87 days to stop the flow of the well but the mess of the event is still affecting many people who inhabit the coast of the Gulf of Mexico and those who use the Gulf as a

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, an estimated 1.3 million gallons (4.9 million liters) of petroleum are spilled into the U.S. waters from vessels and pipelines every year. A major oil spill could easily double that amount. The recent BP oil spill is estimated to take 25 years to clean up (2035). Oil spills usually happen when people make mistakes, equipment breaking down, or natural disasters such as hurricanes. Oil floats on saltwater (the ocean) and usually floats on freshwater (rivers and lakes). Very heavy oil can sometimes sink in freshwater, but this happens very rarely. Oil spills take a long time to recover because of the damage it causes and the only available resources we have. One way that most oil spills are cleaned

When chemicals are involve, people think, especially the environmentalist that it is bad for the ocean but if the oil remains untreated it becomes a disaster. The BP oil spill which happened on April 2010, where about 200 million gallon of oil spilled in the Gulf of Mexico, they used dispersants called Corexit 9500 and 9527. Reporters say that the dispersants are killing the ocean coral. However, on the journal there is a good news for the use of chemical to disperse oil spill. Eenennaam, Wei, Grolle, Foekema and Murk argued that dispersants create “marine snow”. They explained and define marine snow as plants and animals near the surface of the ocean die and decay, they fall toward the sea floor. The decaying material is referred to as “marine

On April 20th, 2010 an explosion occurred that would be considered one of the worst oil spills in U.S. history. The explosion was cause by a surge of natural gas that made it way to the Horizon rig’s platform that ignited. This caused the rig to capsize and sink, thus breaking risers that were being use to counter act the large amount of pressure from oil and natural gasses (Pallardy, 2015). The explosion killed 11 workers and injured 17 others. The explosion caused a massibe leak in the oil wellhead. It took 87 days for the wellhead to be closed and it is estimated that over that time around 210 million gallons of oil leaked into the gulf (Gulf Oil Spill, 2011).

about the dangers of oil and how to clean it up in case it were to get released into the wild. Mitigation is the actions to reduce or eliminate the risks to people and property from such hazards and their effects (Haddow et al, 2014). This definition of mitigation seems to say that, when dealing with risks, they want to greatly reduce any dangers that might come with each risk, and want to save as many lives or property from severe damage or in some cases death. In the case of the BP oil spill, one mitigation would be so that no oil would get out and affect the ocean or marine life. Most oil rigs come with safety standards or protocols in order to mitigate any dangers it might have, to keep the marine life safe, and the safety of the workers on the oil rig. Here the lessons learned could apply to the BP oil spill to make sure it didn’t happen in the first place. In fact, the disaster could have been prevented through proper training, education, and exercises (Haddow et al, 2014). Here we can see that the BP oil spill could have been prevented if the right precautions were put in place and had the people running the oil rig had proper training on how to handle an emergency if it were to occur on their watch.

The BP oil spill happened on April 10th at approximately 11:50 am of the year 2010. The BP oil spill is one of the largest spills in the history of the U.S. and one of the largest unintentional spills in history. The oil in which was spilled was in the Gulf of Mexico. The spill did not only harm the environment, but 11 lives were taken in total from the spill. It took 87 days to clean up most of the oil.

Oil contamination is devastating for an environment. The free release of oil into the water leads to a wide range of negative consequences, such as “the spread by wind and wave” (Bai & Bai, 2014, p. 363). The oil spillage from the Deepwater Horizon platform floating on the surface was spread by wind and sun, moving over the water’s surface. As a result, the oil spread affected the environment, including the wildlife.

The BP oil spill, also known as the deep-water horizon oil spill is one of the worst oil spills in U.S History. On April 20th, 2010, a fire broke out on the platform resulting in an explosion that claimed the lives of eleven workers as well as severely injuring seventeen. Also because of the explosion, an estimated 3.19 million gallons of crude oil leaked into the Gulf of Mexico wreaking havoc on the ecological system as well as the human population that inhabited those affected areas along the coastline. Not only did the deep-water horizon oil spill prove to be detrimental in retrospect to the human and wild life communities, the oil spill also had a negative impact economically as well. According to an article written by David Butler and Edward Sayre at the University of Southern Mississippi, from May-August of 2010 they estimated revenue losses to be about 119,413,000 which is about a 5% decrease from the same time in 2009. Also, according to the article this estimate includes tourism as well as hotels and restaurants in those areas. This paper is intended to analyze the impact of the deep horizon oil spill on the economy.