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introductions on the deepwater horizon spill
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The Deep Horizon oil spill
The Deep-water horizon oil spill is one of the largest oil spills in history. The spill occurred due to several factors including system failure and human error. The spill not only affected the wildlife and economy of the gulf but the entire United States as goods and service that were once available were no longer available. As a result of the oil spill Bp was forced to pay billions of dollars to restore the damages that they have caused. In addition, the oil and gas industry have changes there practices and are working with the government under new laws and regulation to prevent a future oil spill.
On April 20, 2010, an event that became known as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill occurred. It is sometime referred to as the BP oil spill, as BP was the company operating on the Deep Water horizon at the time of the spill. This oil spill is considered one of the largest oil spills in history as approximately 4.9 million barrels of oil made its way into the open ocean, reaching as far away as Florida.
The oil spills occur due to a combination of system failure and human error. The primary cause of the spill was the failure in the cement work, the blowout preventer and the crew’s misinterpretation of crucial safety test. Before the oil crew worked on the rig they had to secure it, they did so by filling the borehole with cement. However, the cement failed to secure the well, allowing for oil and gas to flow through the pipe where it eventually reaching the surface. When the crew noticed the spill they attempted to activate the blowout preventer which would have stopped the flow of oil. But the blowout preventer did not function as it was suppose to, this is due to a bent pipe preventing the blind shear ...
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...nt Investigation Report. S.l.: DIANE, 2010. Print.
Haugen, David M. The BP Oil Spill. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven, 2012. Print.
Repanich, Jeremy. "5 Lingering Questions from the BP Oil Spill." Popular Mechanics. N.p., 20 Apr. 2011. Web. 23 Feb. 2014.
Tiffany, Jackie. "Health Effects from British Petroleum Oil Spill." BP Oilspill. N.p., 16 Sept. 2013. Web. 23 Feb. 2014.
Beinecke, Frances. "RealClearEnergy | 3 Years Later: The Lessons of BP Gulf Oil Spill."RealClearEnergy | 3 Years Later: The Lessons of BP Gulf Oil Spill. The Energy Collective, 19 Apr. 2013. Web. 24 Feb.2014
Mullins, Justin. "The Eight Failures That Caused the Gulf Oil Spill.". N.p., 09 Sept. 2010. Web. 23 Feb. 2014.
"The Oil Drum | What Caused the Deepwater Horizon Disaster?" The Oil Drum | What Caused the Deepwater Horizon Disaster? N.p., 21 May 2010. Web. 23 Feb. 2014.
All the above stakeholders impacted by oil spill but differently unfortunately, the oil spilled into the ocean and killing all the fish and wash off the coast spread through rivers, affecting the fishermen and BP company affected by because they need to clean all this was to be able to cover the costs, and bad publicity the oil spill has affected governments w...
Oil provides us with many necessities in our lives. Cosmetics, medicines, cleaning products, asphalt, food, plastic, and most importantly, petroleum. But of course, nothing comes without a price. The oil that makes our lives so much more convenient, is also ironically gradually killing the environment, this very Earth that we live in. One of the biggest environmental concerns come from oil spills. Oil spill is defined as “ the release of a liquid petroleum hydrocarbon into the environment, especially marine areas, due to human activity, and is a form of pollution.” Let’s look at some examples of these oil spills.
One major business incident happened in April 2010 shocked the world and caused an “earthquake” of British Petroleum (BP)’s brand image. The Deepwater Horizon oil rig owned by BP in the Golf of Mexico exploded, leading to a disastrous oil spill in this marine area. The maritime disaster caused by the explosion became the largest one in the history of the U.S. and brought huge financial and reputations losses to BP. What is worse, sealing the oil well took over five months. From the explosion of the completion of the sealing (announced by BP), over 780 million gallons of crude oil spilled into the sea, causing irreversible pollution and damage to the bio-system in this area and the world (Lofgren 2013). BP’s response, however, is considered as a crisis communication failure (Heller 2012) by some people and others believe BP’s response was effective (Mejri & de Wolf 2013).
On April 20, 2010, an explosion occurred in the Gulf of Mexico, on the Deep water Horizon oil drilling rig which rented by BP. There were 126 workers on board at the time of the explosion. Fifteen of them were injured, and eleven died. Two days later the oil drilling rig sank, the leaving oil spewing into the Gulf. This was the largest marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry, the oil had been leaking for almost three months.
Weeks, Jennifer. "BP's Financial Pain From Spill Is Just Beginning." CQ Researcher 21.29 (2011): 688. MAS Ultra - School Edition. Web. 17 Feb. 2014.
On March 24 1989, the tanker Exxon Valdez runs aground in Prince Williams sound, Alaska. This was a tragic accident that the company deeply regrets. It all began when the Valdez was traveling towards California when it hit a coral reef. As a result, of this accident, significant quantities of oil began to seep into the waters. According to most, the action to contain the spill was slow. As a result, the media blamed Exxon for not responding fast enough to the crises. Many of the wildlife including birds, fish and other mammals were kill...
British Petroleum (“BP”) is the company that is being blamed for the incident. Employing 80,000 people, BP is an international oil company that puts different technology to use for finding oil and gas under the Earth’s surface. One of the oilrigs, Deepwater Horizon has drilled 35,000 ft. making it to be the deepest drilling of oil and gas (Walsh). Deepwater Horizon was drilling in the Gulf of Mexico about 52 miles southeast of Venice on Louisiana's tip. After the explosion, helicopters searched for 11 crewmembers that reported missing. 17 people were injured (BP Internal Investigation Team). A day later, the rig was found upside down (BP Oil Spill Timeline). The cost to clean up the damage is approximately $760 million (Walsh).
Less than a year ago people were outraged about the huge event that was headlining in the news everywhere. This incident was called the British Petroleum (BP) oil spill, and this spill kept many frightened and waiting for answers on the future. The BP oil spill significantly changed many lives, cost an abundance of money, and occurred because people were being careless on the job and not as aware as they should have been.
Since 2005, PBS reported of four major incidents involving BP. The first incident was an explosion that killed 15 people at BP’s Texas refinery in Texas City. BP did not replace the old blown-down drums, a safety feature, with safer, modern flares to save money. An investigation commissioned by former Secretary of State James Baker concluded that this incident was preventable and BP failed in putting safety as a priority. In the Alaska incident, 260,000 gallons of oil leaked from a BP oil pipeline on Alaska’s North Slope in March, 2006. Later investigations found that BP hired uncertified inspectors and kept records poorly. BP agreed to re-inspect 10,000 points and corrected their problems. In July of 2005, a BP oil platform, called Thunder Horse, toppled after Hurricane Dennis. After an investigation, BP found that their engineers had incorrectly installed a number of valves that supported the rig. On January 2007, the Minerals Management Service cited this accident was caused by human error (PBS). In 2010, the Deep Water Horizon rig exploded, leading to oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico. Again BP is ...
The BP oil spill began on 20 April 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico on the BP-operated Macondo Prospect. On April 20, 2010, 126 workers on the mobile offshore drilling unit Deepwater Horizon were in the process of temporarily closing the exploratory Macondo oil well. That evening, an explosion abroad the drilling unit set off a chain of events that eventually led to the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon. Eleven crewmembers lost their lives and others were seriously injured, as fire engulfed and ultimately destroyed the rig.
On April 20, 2010, the Gulf of Mexico experienced a disaster unprecedented in scale and environmental impact. Fifty miles off the coast of Louisiana in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, a BP drilling rig suffered an explosion that claimed eleven lives and caused the rig to sink over 5000 ft. to the sea bed floor. This was the beginning of the BP oil spill which spanned over eighty seven days, releasing an approximate 2.3 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Although the flow of oil into the Gulf was contained July 15, 2010, the lasting effects of the oil spill on the environment continue to be devastating and widespread. (Kirkwood 1)
Most people believe that one man-made natural disaster would teach us to be better, but we have learned that history repeats itself. The Exxon Valdez oil spill (in 1989) and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, or BP oil spill, (in 2010) were both devastating oil spills that shocked the nation. The Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred due to a tanker grounding. The BP oil spill was caused by an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform. These two oil spills were both disasters and had greater effects in certain categories. In this essay, I will be comparing the cause of both oil spills, the damage/effect of both oil spills, and the cleanup of each oil spill.
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 released into the ocean. The spill caused considerable damage to marine and wildlife habitats and the Gulf’s fishing and tourism industries. The White House energy advisor, Carol Browner, goes as far to say that the Deepwater oil spill is the “worst environmental disaster the US has faced.”
Winston A, 2010, Five Lessons from the BP Oil Spill, Harvard Business Review, accessed 1 April 2014,
On a Monday afternoon, A couple of friends and I drove about forty-five minutes to El Dorado to see a movie. A movie in which we didn’t know anything about. None of us had even seen the trailer. I sent my friend a link to the movies that were showing at the cinema in El Dorado, and she had chosen Deepwater Horizon solely on the fact she liked the actors that had been cast for the movie. A few of these actors included Mark Wahlberg and Kate Hudson. Deepwater Horizon, as I came to find out on the car ride there, is about the most devastating oil spill in United States history. Since this event occurred only roughly six years ago, I recognized it after my friend called it the BP oil spill. Growing up in south Arkansas, I know many people that work on oil rigs so the spill was something that came close to home. The movie portrays the events leading up to the rig explosion and the aftermath concerning the people aboard the rig.