The Pros And Cons Of Deepwater Drilling

Offshore drilling is a topic of extreme debate and argument and one of the most debated parts of that is whether or not it benefits the economy in the U.S. One of the first things to note is that stopping offshore drilling could potentially damage the U.S. economy, and therefore how much energy we can overall use. According to Mason, Joseph R., author of, "The Oil Industry Supports Many Louisiana and Gulf Region Economies", we can see the statement, "the moratorium would produce broad economic losses within the Gulf and throughout the nation as a whole". We can gather, from this, that ceasing offshore drilling/offshore oil production, could potentially harm the U.S. economy, and as I said before the economy being damaged overall decides

Hydraulic fracturing is a controversial topic that has a clear stigma associated to its name, creating issues to its feasibility. Regardless of the conventional uncertainties, prejudices, laws, regulation and environmental consequences that makes unconventional methods a bitter topic, the fate of hydraulic fracking is rather ardours due to the nature of the province and history behind it. The provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, carry an exclusive component that escalates the complications of hydraulic fracturing, and that is the fact that it is the traditional land and territory of the aboriginal people of Canada – The Mi’kmaq (pg.282). Nova Scotia alone, is currently the home of over 24,000 people and 13 communities of the Mi’kmaq and Aboriginal people (pg. 283), all of whom are protected by historical rights and treaties, whereupon the infringement of their rights could lead to serious consequences by the federal government of Canada (pg. 287) and the United Nations (pg. 285).

After it has drilled a while deeper another casing is placed to further protect the groundwater from the natural gas and oil which is to be soon produced. Vertically the drill may dig as deep as 4,500 to 7,500 feet.

Hydraulic fracturing is harmful to the environment and people. I believe there are alternative methods that are safer. In order to protect the environment and the population, precautions need to be implemented to reduce the damaging effects of fracking. The government needs to use other methods to change the current process of hydraulic fracturing.

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.

The Deepwater Horizon was not owned by BP, but leased through a company called Transocean. Transocean is understood to be one the largest offshore drilling contracting companies in the world. With BP leasing the equipment from Transocean, it cost an estimated $533,000 a day. Many would come to believe that the costly daily expense would also be the reason BP overlooked issues such as not having enough centralizers. The machine was designed to operate with 24 with only six on hand BP would soon make a decision that they would later regret.

As the terminology of hydraulic fracking suggests, it involves water, a lot of water in fact that in British Columbia, the average volume of water per well is 77 million litres. With the usage of water at both the front end with fracking fluid, the water based chemical cocktail that is injected into the shale, and at the back end where there is flowback water and produced water. (Becklumb et al., 2015) The flow of water back up from the fracking operation (the backflow) is a combination of brine and formulated fracking fluid. This backflow water will persist until it reaches the point where the water and components resembles the local formation of minerals and rock chemically. This is known as produced water, while the well continues in operation.

Hydraulic Fracking is a drilling method developed for the extraction of energy resources buried beneath shale formations located deep below the Earth’s surface. The practice of vertical drilling has been safely performed for more than 50 years, but the recent development of horizontal drilling has exposed the practice to harsh scrutinization. Vertical drilling inserts pipe directly into the shale formations allowing for limited access to pockets of methane. The last 10 to 15 years has brought about the development of horizontal drilling, which allows drilling to be conducted with greater economic benefit. The process splinters shale formations horizontally, allowing the escape of larger amounts of methane. The methane travels through fractures and eventually is stored for transport. Proponents of hydraulic fracking contend the practice is safe, provides jobs, and is healthier for the environment than fossil fuels. Opponents postulate the practice pollutes the water table, is a health risk, is a viable danger to the climate, and causes earthquakes. The

Since Donald Trump took office as President of the United States, he has been a constant figure in the news. Earlier this month, his administration announced a plan to open U.S. coastal waters to offshore oil drilling. According to the New York Times article, the plan lifts a ban that was put in place by former President Barack Obama and gives energy companies access to billions of acres of the U.S. coastline along the Eastern Seaboard, the Artic, and the Pacific waters off California.

The Deepwater Horizon was a nine year old, ultra-deepwater, dynamically positioned, semi-submersible, offshore drilling rig built in South Korea. In 2008, British Petroleum (BP) leased it from Transocean to drill for oil in the Gulf Coast. In September 2009, the rig drilled the deepest oil well in history at a depth of 35,055-feet. On April 20, 2010 while drilling the rig exploded at 9:45PM (CST), killing eleven workers and injuring seventeen others. It was caused when methane gas from the well shot all the way up and out of the drill column, expanded onto the platform then ignited and exploded. The explosion then led the rig to burn, with the resulting fire unable to be extinguished 2 days later it sinked leaving

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

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.,

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

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).