1.Introduction and Aims
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.
It is considered the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry, an estimated 8% to 31% larger in volume than the previously largest, the Ixtoc I oil spill. The flow was stopped on 15 July 2010 and after several failed efforts to contain the flow, the well was declared sealed on 19 September 2010.
1.1. The Facts about the BP Spill Oil
1. Following the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, a sea-floor oil gusher flowed for 87 days, until it was capped on 15 July 2010. Federal science and engineering teams, citing data that are “the most accurate to date,” estimated that 53,000 barrels of oil a day were pouring from the well just before BP was able to cap it on July 15.
The US Government estimated the total discharge at 4.9 million barrels of oil with plus or minus 10% uncertainty have gushed from BP’s well.
2. According to the satellite images, the spill directly impacted 68,000 square miles (180,000 km2) of ocean, which is comparable to the size of Oklahoma. Also, 16,000 total miles of coastline have been affected, including the coasts of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. By early June 2010, oil had washed up on 125 ...
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The New York Times, (Aug 2010), Gulf Spill Is the Largest of Its Kind, ScientistsSay.http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/us/03spill.html?_r=2&fta=y&. (03 Aug 2010, accessed 22 March, 2014).
The Telegraph, (2010), BP leak the world's worst accidental oil spill. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/7924009/BP-leak-the-worlds-worst-accidental-oil-spill.html. (03 Aug 2010, accessed 22 March, 2014).
Viegas, J. (2013), Record Dolphin, Sea Turtle Deaths Since Gulf Spill. http://news.discovery.com/animals/whales-dolphins/record-dolphin-sea-turtle-deaths-since-gulf-spill-130402.htm . (02 Apr 2013, accessed 25 March, 2014)
Webb, T. (13 May 2010). "BP boss admits job on the line over Gulf oil spill". http://www.theguardian.com/business/2010/may/13/bp-boss-admits-mistakes-gulf-oil-spill . The Guardian. (13 May 2010, accessed 05 Apr 2014).
The BP oil spill began with the explosion of the mobile offshore drilling unit known as the Deepwater Horizon, then operating in the Macondo Prospect Oil Field some 60 kilometers off the coast of the U.S. state of Louisiana, on April 29, 2010. The leak was capped on July 15, 2010, with a repair to the underwater wellhead ruptured by the Deepwater Horizon explosion. Thus, the BP oil spill lasted for about three months. During this time, roughly 5 million barrels of crude oil leaked from the wellhead into the Gulf of Mexico. The flow rate was not uniform, beginning...
April 20, 2010, a tragic disaster struck the Gulf Coast. British Petroleum deepwater Horizon oil rig cracked from three places and raw oil leaking into the sea. .it was considered that over 60,000 barrels of oil a day are mixing with Gulf water and Oil spread over 70 miles to 130 miles into the sea and can be seen from space.
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.
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).
The Torrey canyon oil spill was one of the largest oil tanker disasters; it spilled just over 25,000,000 gallons of oil along the coast of Cornwall. The Torrey Canyon was one of the first supertankers originally designed to hold the capacity of 60,000 tons, although, it was later redesigned to hold 120,000 tons. The tanker was filled to capacity when is set out on March 18, 1996, and hit a reef off the coast of Cornwall. The reason the Tory Canyon oil spill caused such great damage and gathered international attention, was the negative impact it had on the environment. The spill caused an oil slick; an oil of layer that float on the surface of a body of water, that measured 270 square miles and damaged 180 miles of coastal land, that has yet
Clean water involves seclusion of lakes and hoping the acid rain does not reach these pure water supplies. Another major source of contaminating clean water are oil spills and how destructively they blanket the shoreline they come in contact with. Although offshore drilling expeditions contribute some to the devastating outcome, oil tankers are the superior enemies toward the water. One estimate is that for every one million tons of petroleum shipped one ton is spilled. The largest super tanker spill was in 1979 when 3.3 million barrels was spilled off the coast of France. The largest in the United States was the Exxon Valdez in the gulf of Alaska. On the night of March 24, 1989 the 987 foot Exxon Valdez ran aground in the gulf of Alaska spilling 260,000 barrels of oil. With the help of the forceful winds, the slick soon covered about 1,100 miles of shoreline, including many islands in the sound.
Oil still leaks from the U.S.S. Arizona today. A scheduled trip to the mainland, later in the month, called for the Arizona to be filled in preparation. The day before the attack, nearly 1.5 million gallons of fuel was loaded into the ship’s tanks. Much of the fuel fed the explosion and fire on the ship the next day. But throughout the 70 some odd years, the Arizona continues to spill about 9 quarts of oil each day into the harbor.
On April 20, 2010, the Macondo wellhead BP pipe leaked crude oil and gas on the ocean floor into the Gulf of Mexico 42 miles off the Louisiana coast (Gulf Oil Spill). This oil spill is known as the largest spill in U.S. history. The pipe was located 5,000 feet underwater where there are temperatures just above freezing and extremely high pressures (Gulf Oil Spill). Oil spewed from this pipe non-stop for 87 days (Gulf Oil Spill). About twenty percent of it ended up on the ocean floor or on the surface (Gulf Oil Spill). Since it’s hydrophobic, the oil on the surface spreads out and forms slicks. These slicks greatly affect ecosystems and animals. The oil that didn’t end up on the floor or surface hovered in the middle of the ocean, forming layers of oil (Gulf Oil Spill). All 200 million gallons of crude oil mixed throughout the ocean and affected coastal and deep-sea sediments (Gulf Oil Spill). Although the pipe was capped on July 15, 2010 (Gulf Oil Spill), much of the oil still remains on the Gulf floor today.
On March 24, 1989, the ship loaded with oil tanker Exxon Valdez entered Alaska’s Prince William Sound. At 12:04 am, the ship hit a Bligh Reef and it tore open the hull releasing 11 million gallons of oil into the water. Affecting the environment. Soon, there was a storm that spread the oil more than 1000 miles of coastlines. The ship was from the ExxonMobil Corporation, so the corporation ended up paying a billion of fine for this disaster. This was the largest oil spill in U.S History and tested the abilities of other organizations to prepare for, and respond to this kind of disaster.
April 20, 2010, an explosion killed 11 people instantly and injured 17 more. But the explosion did much more than that. The event occurred in the Gulf of Mexico, off the Coast of Louisiana, on an oilrig. Sometime after the rig exploded, it collapsed. There was now a much bigger problem on hand. 5,000 feet below the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, oil began to gush into the open waters of the gulf. Over the span of 87 days, oil continued to spew hundreds of barrels of oil from the Macondo wellhead. Once the leak was finally one hundred percent ceiled on July 15, 2010, the wellhead had leaked more than 130 gallons of oil into the gulf; therefore making the incident the largest accidental oil spill ever.
The Exxon Valdez was the largest offshore oil spill in the U.S. until the BP oil spill. The Exxon Valdez spill released over 10 million gallons of oil into the Pacific Ocean. The spill effected over 1,100 ...
The Deepwater Horizon was a enormous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in April 20th, 2010. The spill was around 41 miles long off the coast of louisiana. When it was released by the natural core it traveled and had killed people and injured people's health conditions. Oil escaping the damaged well was approximately 1,000 barrels a day. The oil that had leaked was sealed was a slick extending over thousands of square miles of the gulf.
Swift, W.H, . C.J. Touhill, W.L. Templeton, and D.P. Roseman. 1969. Oil spillage prevention, control, and restoration—state of the art and research needs. Washington, D.C.: The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc.
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.”
This amount is about forty times that spilled in the Exxon Valdez disaster, and was beyond any previously imaginable scope. Both Saddam Hussein’s army and Coalition forces claimed that the other had done more to wreak havoc on the Gulf environment by releasing oil into the Gulf. In reality, both belligerents in the conflict did significant damage to the environment and mostly the damage was unnecessary. The US military accused Saddam Hussein’s forces of releasing large amounts of oil from the Sea Island Terminal in Kuwait by dynamiting the station at the beginning of the air war. In the end, about 6 million barrels flowed from Sea Island into the Gulf (Hawley, p 46).