...The Deepwater Horizon oil spill began on 20 April 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico on the BP-owned, Transocean-operated Macondo Prospect. An oil well about a mile below the surface blew out, causing an explosion killing eleven people. 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. Following the explosion and the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, a sea-floor oil gusher flowed for 87 days expelling an estimated 270 million gallons of oil, until it was capped on 15 July 2010.1 The Deepwater Horizon oil spill may be now considered one of the worst oil spills but it is not the only one that had a devastating...
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...found papers that illustrated how crude oil has affected the exposed area where Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill was located. Impact of The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill on Bioavailable Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons gave information on The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. Which is the largest marine oil spill in United States history. It estimated the amount of oil spilled into the ocean the Federal government accepted estimate of 4.1 million barrels of oil and 7 million was supported by independent researchers. Furthermore, an estimated 2.1 million gallons of dispersants were applied at the ocean surface and the wellhead. This study demonstrated that the Deepwater Horizon oil spill impacted coastal waters of the Gulf of Mexico and contributed to temporary increases in the bioavailable concentration of PAHs. Additionally, the data provide measures of potential exposures to PAHs in ecologically sensitive coastal areas, accessed by large human populations, which can be incorporated into ongoing studies in a variety of fields. Oil Impacts on Coastal Wetlands: Implications for the Mississippi River Delta Ecosystem after the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill summarized the general knowledge of oil spill impacts on coastal marshes. Relative to the chemistry of oil and its related toxicity; the capacity of microbial processes to degrade oil and reduce toxicity; the responses of wetland vegetation, benthic biota, and marsh-dependent fishery resources to oil; and impacts on ecosystem services on which...
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...On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig located in the Gulf of Mexico was set to begin pumping valuable oil out from under the ocean floor. After starting the process of drilling, the crew noticed what they called “gas kicks”, the little kicks the pipe that is pumping the oil up may give if it hits a gas bubble. They had no idea how wrong they were. The Deepwater Horizon blew up after the oil well that they were pumping from failed and exploded. Massive amounts of oil came blasting out of the water and shot 240 feet into the air. The oil rig caught fire and began to sink with her crew of 126 still aboard. 11 people last their lives when the Deepwater Horizon blew, and the Gulf of Mexico is still paying the price as well. The Deepwater...
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...A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE BP OIL SPILL RESPONSE AND PREPAREDNESS PLAN FOR THE DEEP HORIZON – WHY DID IT FAIL? Toni Josina Elfrieda Beukes* May 2012† ABSTRACT: Based on events that unfolded in the U.S. in the weeks and subsequently months of the Macondo well blow-out, it is clear that neither industry nor government was equipped to deal with a spill the scale and complexity of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. As one of its key recommendations to President Obama for addressing the causes and consequences of the spill, the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in its final report, stated the need for “strengthening oil spill response, planning and capacity”. Industry best practice dictates that quickness and accuracy are key requirements for effective oil spill response and preparedness planning (OSRPP); yet it took nearly three months to seal the Macondo well. This paper is accordingly concerned with the reasons for the apparent failure of the BP oil spill response plan. This failure will be considered in light of current international environmental regulations on OSRPP and applicable United States legislation, whilst assessing the BP oil spill response plan’s compliance therewith. The study will also consider some theory in the development of OSRPP by looking specifically at risk assessment tools and applying key criteria to the BP oil spill response plan to determine its adequacy and appropriateness for its operations in the GOM. What...
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...FEATURE pubs.acs.org/est Oil Biodegradation and Bioremediation: A Tale of the Two Worst Spills in U.S. History Ronald M. Atlas* University of Louisville, Louisville Kentucky 40292, United States Terry C. Hazen Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, United States ABSTRACT: The devastating environmental impacts of the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989 and its media notoriety made it a frequent comparison to the BP Deepwater Horizon spill in the popular press in 2010, even though the nature of the two spills and the environments impacted were vastly di erent. Fortunately, unlike higher organisms that are adversely impacted by oil spills, microorganisms are able to consume petroleum hydrocarbons. These oil degrading indigenous microorganisms played a signi cant role in reducing the overall environmental impact of both the Exxon Valdez and BP Deepwater Horizon oil spills. ’ INTRODUCTION TO BIODEGRADATION OF PETROLEUM HYDROCARBONS Petroleum hydrocarbons in crude oils, such as those released into marine ecosystems by the Exxon Valdez and BP Deepwater Horizon spills, are natural products derived from aquatic algae laid down between 180 and 85 million years ago. Crude oils, composed mostly of diverse aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons, regularly escape into the environment from underground reservoirs. Because petroleum hydrocarbons occur naturally in all marine environments, there has been time for numerous diverse microorganisms to evolve the capability...
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...DEEPWATER HORIZON CATASTROPHE Deepwater Horizon was an ultra-deepwater, dynamically positioned, semi-submersible offshore drilling rig. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill (also referred to as the BP oil spill, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill or the Macondo blowout) is a massive ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, now considered the largest offshore spill in U.S. history. Some estimates placed it by late May or early June as among the largest oil spills in the world with tens of millions of gallons spilled to date. The spill stems from a sea floor 10,000 foot deep oil gusher (MC252) that followed the April 20, 2010 Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion. The explosion killed 11 platform workers and injured 17 others. Factors that contributed are: 1. The cement that seals the reservoir from the well; 2. The casing system, which seals the well bore; 3. The pressure tests to confirm the well is sealed; 4. The execution of procedures to detect and control hydrocarbons in the well, including the use of the BOP; 5. The BOP Emergency Disconnect System, which can be activated by pushing a button at multiple locations on the rig; 6. The automatic closure of the BOP after its connection is lost with the rig; and 7. Features in the BOP to allow Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROV) to close the BOP and thereby seal the well at the seabed after a blow out. A failure of the cement plug was found contributed to the blowing of an exploration. As far as...
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...Do you ever wonder what is the true story of deepwater horizon Have you ever wondered what the true story of the DeepWater horizon oil spill,I Know the true story. The DeepWater Horizon oil rig is the biggest oil spill in the world. What oil spills are made of and how the affect the marine life around them. Oil spills are made from many oils or other crude oil. There are many things that oil spills could be made of but the normal one is just straight oil. There are many other types of oil they could be made of. But there are hundreds other oils and gases that are spilled every day How oil spills are cleaned up and what is used to clean it up.Oil spills are cleaned up by a dispersant that makes the oil form tiny particles that are easier to clean up.The boat called a skimmer has a filter that catches those tiny oil particles but lets the water go through. This the...
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...BP & Deepwater Horizon C. Nelson BP & Deepwater Horizon Every business, in some way, is affected by public and private criticism. One industry that is never too far away from criticism is the oil and gas industry. Over the course of this essay, we will explore BP, its stakeholders, some of their criticisms, and BP’s response to those criticisms. BP, formerly British Petroleum, is the fourth largest oil and gas companies in the world in terms of revenue and sixth based on production. (Statista, 2015) (Forbes, 2015) Although BP doesn’t have an official mission statement, the company does have a few statements entitled “Our Values”, “Clear Priorities”, and “Our strategy and sustainability”. BP (2015) states, “We have five values that express our shared understanding of what we believe, how we aim to behave and what we aspire to be as an organization.” Those five values include safety, respect, excellence, courage, and one team. “Clear Priorities” (2015) details three main topics that top the company’s interests including: safe, reliable and compliant operations; disciplined financial choices; and competitive project execution. Thirdly, BP has a commitment to sustainability and states (2015), “We believe that the best way for BP to achieve sustainable success is by acting in the long-term interests of our shareholders, our partners and society.” The three pillars augment the lack of a mission statement and express BP’s commitments and responsibilities....
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...A Bad Idea Crude oil is one of the three kinds of fossil fuel (coal, crude oil, and natural gas) that are widely used by humanity. It plays a very important role in our world, as it is one of our primary energy sources. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the United States is the biggest oil consumption country in the world, which consumes 19.5 million barrels of oil per day (EIA, “Country Energy Profiles: Oil Consumption”). Crude oil can not only be found on the continent, but also in the ocean. The activity that people discover and extract oil from the ocean is called offshore drilling. Offshore drilling has a long history in the United States. The first offshore well was drilled in 1896, in California (“History of Offshore Oil” 163). Oil soon became the primary energy source of the United States by 1910, as the internal combustion engine, which requires gasoline to power, was invented (“History of Offshore Oil” 163). In the next few decades, offshore drilling industry in the U.S. was going up quickly (“History of Offshore Oil” 163-64). Along with the development of the industry, the government regulation came up. To pursue offshore drilling in the U.S. OCS (Outer Continental Shelf) lands, oil companies need to acquire the lease from the U.S. federal government (“History of Offshore Oil” 164). The Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) passed in 1953 ensured federal government’s control of the OCS (“History of Offshore Oil” 164). However, the...
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...BP Struggles to Resolve Sustainability Disaster Case Summary: The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010 is the worst oil spill in US history. Initial claims on the scope of the spill, as released by BP, was that 5,000 barrels per day were being released into the water, although they stated they had no way of precisely measuring the spill. Outside analysts have stated that between 54,000 and 84,000 barrels per day were leaking into the area. This estimate has been largely supported and accepted. The spill lasted for 87 days before workers finally sealed the leak, but by that time, more than 4 million barrels of oil had been released into the gulf. The BP oilrig, owned by Transocean, Deepwater Horizon had been in operation in the Gulf of Mexico since February 2001. The rig was valued at more than $560 million dollars and worked on many different wells in the gulf. The last well it operated on was the Macondo well. It was this well that the oil spill came from and was brought about by several preventable errors on the part of BP and Transocean management and employees. The Deepwater Horizon vessel was an exploratory rig assigned the duty of finding oil, reporting it, and capping the well for another extracting type rig to come in and harvest the oil. While drilling the well, the rig encountered pockets of natural gas buildups where it was drilling. A week prior to the fatal explosion, Horizon encountered one of these pockets and the natural gas began to rise up the...
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...Current ethical issues on Oil Spill Today, with the continual and rapidly growing need of energy demand by big nations like United States and China continuing to furnish their domestic consumptions of oil have led to increased prices of gasoline whereby alternative forms of energy production are sought. With this in mind, offshore drilling can be a viable option for satiating the need of oil and also to boost the economy of the nation. In this report, I am going to discuss how the current Deepwater Horizon rig explosion has led to disastrous oil spill into the Gulf of Mexico causing environmental problems and also discuss how the oil spill if resolved and with safe and secure drilling techniques, the economic impact of offshore drilling can outweigh the environmental issues. Concerning the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion on April 20, 2010, which escalated into a massive amount of oil spillage from the well reservoir as the oilrig sunk killing eleven crewmembers on board. The key players related to the rig explosion are British Petroleum (BP), Transocean, rig owner, and Halliburton. BP is one of the world's largest energy companies, providing its customers with fuel for transportation, energy for heat and light, retail services and petrochemicals products for everyday items. (“BP at a glance,” 2010) Transocean, the world’s largest offshore drilling contractor and the owner of Deepwater Horizon rig, provides the most versatile fleet of mobile offshore drilling units to help...
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...immediately following the blow out and explosions on the Deepwater Horizon. Answer: My first thoughts after I read both incident chronology’s, to compare and contrast the way Transocean and BP describe the incidents, is that BP or Transocean do not take ownership of the incident nor do either want to not acknowledge wrongdoing of any aspect of event. Transocean points the finger at BP and BP’s chronology seems to minimize their part. Transocean chronology begins on 4/14/2013, and ends 4/20/2013, while BP’s chronology begins on 10/6/2009, and ends 5/5/2013. The obvious differences in the incident chronologies are the BP incident chronology is longer, but does not have as much finger pointing and is not as interesting as Transocean’s. BP makes up for this in their “Accident Analysis” sections, but their chronology sticks to logs and facts compared to Transocean’s more narrative approach. BP uses bullet points at the beginning of their chronology and a dressed up spreadsheet with short descriptions of each timeline event. Transocean chronology is more descriptive and colorful. They use their incident chronology as a sounding board for all of BP’s shortcomings during the entire project. The use this section to minimize their involvement in the project. They use the chronology express “BP’s direction” and “BP’s poor decisions” during their involvement with them during the project. The Deepwater Horizon, which was owned and operated by Transocean and had been...
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...Deepwater Oil Spills Deepwater oil drilling has been an issue that continually bothers a great deal of people. Environmentalists are truly concerned with the effects that oil spills cause to the environment and species that live within the seas. There have been many spills throughout the years, but especially since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill off the Gulf Coast in 2010 that has gotten many concerned. Not only was the event in the news continually, but it was considered to be one of the worst environmental disasters in the United States history. Previously, the Exxon Valdez Oil spill was the worst catastrophic event regarding oil drilling, and I have paid much attention to that over the years, boycotting Exxon and recently learning that some of the original defendants in the lawsuit had died, waiting for a resolution of that incident over 20 years ago. The recent oil spill has been catastrophic, it killed eleven people due to the explosion, but the damage to many of the resident’s lives were unbelievable. In this paper, I will discuss the oil spills within the past few years, especially the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the environmental effects to the species of the sea, and the need for continual vigilance regarding this industry and whether or not it should even exist in this country. In 2011, there were four incidents of oil spills including off the coast of Brazil. In one incident, there was an oil leak, roughly 350 square miles, slowly making its way down the...
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...Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Seven years ago, 2010. The BP oil well deep in the Gulf of Mexico exploded at the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and left 11 workers dead. The explosion set off the worst offshore oil spill near the Mississippi River Delta and the coasts of Louisiana state. Because of the oil leaking many marine species such as fishes, dolphins, and plants died. Oil spill was noticed on the 4/22/2010, when the BP found a large oil spots began to spread around the Deepwater Horizon. However, the Flow Rate Technical Group estimated the initial flow rate was 5,000 barrels per day, making it the world’s largest accidental spill. (Deepwater Horizon oil spill). The BP company had many attempts to stop the flow of oil. First, they tried to...
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...Beijing No. 55 High School BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Investigation Subject: Geography Level: High (HL) Name: Stephanie Chinese: 姜智旻 Homeroom: 10-5 Word count: 1088 Student number: 4192 Supervisor: Craig Hamilton On 20th of August 2010, the oil drilling rig Deepwater Horizon, operating in the Gulf of Mexico exploded then sunk resulting to 11 deaths. During the 87 days, about 4.9 billion barrels of oil had already spread. An estimation of 42,000 gallon of oil is oozing from underwater. From then 75,000km2 was not allowed for fishing. Apparently, the blowout preventer device had bad managements and operations, and failed. Investigators said, “The problems with this blowout preventer were worse than we understood.” (Seth, 2014) In addition, investigators have stated that the cause of this explosion was because of the screw ups with cement, drilling mud, fluid pressure, mismanaged tests, and poor decisions. Therefore, this device should be improved so it doesn’t happen again. They have discovered that it has been the device operator’s fault in view of the fact that the blowout preventer hasn’t been tested accurately, there were problems in the wiring and dead batteries. In order to clean the oil excess, they used powerful chemicals, which they don’t know the effects of on the environment. It was from 1.6km down to the bottom. After this cause, the British Petroleum (BP) went into investigation, negotiating with more than 50 expertise from within BP and industry....
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