Gulf of Mexico oil spill consequences. Explosion on an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico. The Deepwater Horizon oil platform and the history of its creation and operation, the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform, which resulted in a major environmental disaster
Editor's responseOn April 22, 2010, an accident occurred on the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform, which BP used to produce oil in the Gulf of Mexico. As a result of the disaster, 11 people died and hundreds of thousands of tons of oil spilled into the sea. Due to the huge losses incurred as a result of the incident, BP was forced to sell assets around the world.
About 5 million barrels of crude oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico.
Extinguishing a platform in the Gulf of Mexico. April 2010 Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org
The Deepwater Horizon ultra-deep drilling platform was built by the shipbuilding company Hundai Industries ( South Korea) commissioned by R&B Falcon (Transocean Ltd.). This platform was launched in 2001, and some time later it was leased to the British oil and gas company British Petroleum (BP). The lease period has been extended several times, last time- until the beginning of 2013.
In February 2010, BP began developing the Macondo field in the Gulf of Mexico. A well was drilled at a depth of 1500 meters.
Oil platform explosion
April 20, 2010, 80 km from the coast American state Louisiana on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform there was a fire and explosion. The fire lasted more than 35 hours; firefighting vessels that arrived at the scene of the accident tried unsuccessfully to extinguish it. On April 22, the platform sank in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
As a result of the accident, 11 people went missing; searches for them were carried out until April 24, 2010 and did not yield any results. 115 people were evacuated from the platform, including 17 injured. Subsequently, world news agencies reported that two more people died during the liquidation of the consequences of the accident.
Oil spill
From April 20 to September 19, liquidation of the consequences of the accident continued. Meanwhile, according to some experts, about 5,000 barrels of oil entered the water every day. According to other sources, up to 100,000 barrels per day entered the water, as stated by the US Secretary of the Interior in May 2010.
By the end of April, the oil slick reached the mouth of the Mississippi River, and in July 2010, oil was discovered on the beaches of the US state of Texas. In addition, the underwater oil plume stretched 35 km in length at a depth of more than 1,000 meters.
Over 152 days, about 5 million barrels of oil spilled into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico through damaged well pipes. The area of the oil spill was 75 thousand km².
Photo: www.globallookpress.com
Elimination of consequences
After the Deepwater Horizon sank, efforts were made to seal the well, and later oil spill cleanup efforts began to contain the spread of the oil slick.
Almost immediately after the accident, specialists put plugs on the damaged pipe and began work on installing a steel dome, which was supposed to cover the damaged platform and prevent an oil spill. The first installation attempt was unsuccessful, and on May 13 it was decided to install a smaller dome. The oil leak was completely eliminated only on August 4, thanks to the fact that... To completely seal the well, two additional relief wells had to be drilled, into which cement was also pumped. Full sealing was announced on September 19, 2010.
To eliminate the consequences, tugs, barges, rescue boats, and BP submarines were raised. They were assisted by ships, aircraft and naval equipment from the US Navy and Air Force. More than 1,000 people took part in the liquidation of the consequences, and about 6,000 US National Guard troops were involved. To limit the area of the oil slick, dispersant spraying was used ( active substances, used to settle oil spills). Booms were also installed to contain the spill area. Mechanical oil collection was used, both with the help of special vessels and manually - by volunteers on the US coast. In addition, experts decided to resort to controlled burning of oil spills.
Photo: www.globallookpress.com
Incident investigation
According to an internal investigation conducted by BP safety officials, the accident was blamed on worker errors, technical failures and design flaws in the oil platform itself. The prepared report stated that rig personnel misinterpreted pressure measurements during a well leak test, causing a stream of hydrocarbons rising from the bottom of the well to fill the drilling platform through a vent. After the explosion, as a result of technical shortcomings of the platform, the anti-reset fuse, which was supposed to automatically plug the oil well, did not work.
In mid-September 2010, a report by the Bureau of Ocean Resources Management, Regulation and Conservation and the US Coast Guard was published. It contained 35 causes of the accident, with BP identified as the sole culprit in 21 of them. In particular, main reason neglect of safety standards to reduce well development costs was cited. In addition, the platform employees did not receive comprehensive information about the work at the well, and as a result, their ignorance was superimposed on other errors, which led to the well-known consequences. In addition, the reasons cited were poor well design that did not provide sufficient barriers to oil and gas, as well as insufficient cementing and changes made to the well development project at the very last moment.
Transocean Ltd, the owners of the oil platform, and Halliburton, which carried out the underwater cementing of the well, were named as partly to blame.
Litigation and compensation
The Mexican oil spill trial against the British company BP began on February 25, 2013 in New Orleans (USA). In addition to the claims from the federal authorities, the British company was brought claims from American states and municipalities.
A federal court in New Orleans has approved the amount of fines that BP must pay for the accident in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. The fine will be $4.5 billion. BP will pay the amount over five years. Almost $2.4 billion will be transferred to the National Fish Fund and wildlife USA, 350 million — National Academy Sci. In addition, $525 million will be paid over three years based on claims from the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
On December 25, 2013, the US Court of Appeal ruled that, despite the appeals filed, the British corporation BP must continue to pay claims of organizations and individuals, despite unproven facts of losses as a result of the oil spill. Initially, BP admitted its guilt in the incident only partially, placing part of the responsibility on the platform operator Transocean and subcontractor Halliburton. Transocean agreed in December 2012, but continues to insist that BP bears full responsibility for the accident on the platform.
Environmental implications
After the accident, one-third of the Gulf of Mexico was closed to fishing, and an almost complete ban on fishing was introduced.
Photo: www.globallookpress.com
1,100 miles of state coastline from Florida to Louisiana were polluted, and dead people were constantly found on the shore. sea creatures. In particular, about 600 were found dead sea turtles, 100 dolphins, more than 6,000 birds and many other mammals. As a result of the oil spill, mortality among whales and dolphins increased in subsequent years. According to ecologists, the mortality rate of bottlenose dolphins has increased 50 times.
Tropical Coral reefs, located in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, also suffered enormous damage.
Oil has even seeped into the waters of coastal reserves and marshes that play important role in maintaining the vital activity of wildlife and migratory birds.
According to recent studies, today the Gulf of Mexico has almost completely recovered from the damage it suffered. American oceanologists monitored the growth of reef-forming corals, which cannot live in polluted water, and found that the corals reproduce and grow in their usual rhythm. Biologists note a slight increase average temperature waters in the Gulf of Mexico.
Some researchers have expressed concerns about the impact of the oil accident on the climate-forming Gulf Stream. It was suggested that the current cooled by 10 degrees and began to break up into separate undercurrents. Indeed, some weather anomalies(for example, strong winter frosts in Europe) have been occurring since the oil spill occurred. However, scientists still have not agreed on whether the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is the primary cause climate change and whether it influenced the Gulf Stream.
IN modern world oil plays an important role in life support Earth. Thanks to it, cars drive, many installations work, and so on. Using oil humanity is advancing in scientific and technological progress, creating new devices and machines. But everyone has long known that oil has a detrimental effect on environment: A drop of this product can make a thousand liters of water undrinkable. It’s hard to even imagine what would happen if thousands of tons of oil spilled into the ocean. However, it happened.
Ordinary workdays
Deepwater Horizon- American oil platform, the name of which is translated into Russian as "Deepwater Horizon". This installation operated in the Gulf of Mexico near the field Tiber. By the way, the platform held the record for drilling deep wells - the record for a depth of more than ten kilometers belongs to it.
Day after day, the oil production unit worked, continuing to set new records for mineral production. According to various sources, the number of workers ranged from 130 to 160 people simultaneously on the platform.
What happened?
Because oil- this is, first of all, a flammable substance, then one spark is enough to start a fire. In April 2010, the platform Deepwater Horizon" caught fire. This real story, which entailed a large number of human casualties.
A cause of fire became the negligence of people working for Horizon. The monitors had been showing strong surges in pressure for a long time, but no one paid attention to it. And the valves couldn’t stand it, but it burst out flammable gas methane. Just one spark is enough for the platform to turn into a burning torch. And so it happened - everything was enveloped in fire.
All the people at work escaped as best they could: some jumped from a height of 25 meters, others heads"ran to the rescue boats. As a result, seven people were seriously injured, eleven people were missing, and four were in critical condition.
Oil spills over a long distance
According to Western media reports mass media, oil spilled more than 150 days. Over such a significant period of time, the well "squeezed out" of which is five million barrels oil(for your information, one barrel is approximately 159 liters). Every day, five thousand barrels of natural resources leaked from the oil canal.
Spot oil in the ocean reached a mind-boggling figure - 75 thousand square meters. The distance to the nearby coast is only 34 kilometers, in particular to Louisiana. Natural raw materials spread at breakneck speed, clogging rivers and lakes.
It's scary to imagine what could happen when the oil reaches the warm current Gulf Stream. If this did happen, then the West Coasts Europe would be covered in oil. And all the flora and fauna simply began to die.
What did the disaster entail?
The consequences of the disaster were very serious. Of course, the first thing that suffers is the environment. Just imagine - almost 1,800 kilometers of coastline were polluted with oil. Naturally, after everything that happened, the waters are no longer suitable for vacationers, and the coasts are “painted” black. Fishing bans introduced in several states America.
Many animals died: about 600 dead turtles, tons of dead fish, and many dead birds were found. Various fishing activities are prohibited in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
Many industries suffered from the disaster: oil, the tourism and fishing industries suffered enormous losses. A third of the entire bay was closed to fishermen. Although the other part was freely available, there were still problems when selling the products.
Elimination of accident consequences
The coast guard service began to eliminate the consequences of the disaster United States of America. More than 1,000 people and 6,000 military personnel took part in the operation. Many ships, barges and boats tried to clear the water of the malignant oil.
The most effective way to eliminate an oil spill is burning. IN night from 28 to 29 April 2010 The spot was set on fire for the first time near Louisiana. During the entire period of liquidation of the consequences, more than four hundred cases of burning were carried out. Of course, this bore fruit.
One of effective ways water purification is the spraying of a special chemical solution using aircraft - dispersant. In this case, the oil will be broken into small spots, which will sink to the bottom under the weight of their own weight.
Last method- This is a normal oil collection. It was carried out either with the help of special skimmer vessels (the so-called collectors) or with the help of volunteers on the coast. It was difficult to clean sandy beaches, since the oil simply mixed with sand, becoming a homogeneous mass.
Causes of the accident
Two organizations were involved in the investigation into the causes of the disaster: BP and the United States Coast Guard. According to the first, the main reason is anthropogenic. The person simply did not keep track of the instruments showing critical values.
Width=»990″/>Drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico at the site of the Deepwater Horizon disaster (a semi-submersible ultra-deepwater drilling oil platform with a dynamic positioning system, built in 2001 by a South Korean shipbuilding company by Hyundai Heavy Industries). The accident caused an oil spill, which became one of the largest man-made disasters, affecting the environmental situation.
Oil suction in Barataria Bay (one of the bays of the Gulf of Mexico, which is located in southeastern Louisiana, in Jefferson Parish and Plaquemines Parish, United States of America).
A plume of smoke rises from a controlled burning of oil off the coast of Louisiana. The explosion on the Deepwater Horizon platform killed 11 people and injured 17 out of 126 people. Later, it was reported that two more people died while eliminating the consequences of the disaster.
Oil in the water off the coast of Orange Beach, Alabama. Due to damage to the well pipes at a depth of 1,500 meters, about 5 million barrels of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico over 152 days; the oil slick spread over an area of 75 thousand square kilometers.
Pollution off the coast of Alabama (located in the southeastern region of the United States).
White ibises stained with oil. The photo was taken in the marshes of a small island in Barataria Bay, near Grand Isle. The birds were rescued and temporarily housed at the Fort Jackson Rehabilitation Center.
An oil slick on the surface of the water in Barataria Bay, west of Port Sulfur, Louisiana. In February 2010, the Deepwater Horizon platform began drilling a well at a depth of 1,500 meters in the Macondo field.
Oil in Barataria Bay. As a result of the oil spill, a fishing ban was introduced and more than a third of the entire Gulf of Mexico was closed to fishing.
Oil on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, photographed by satellite.
The ship collects oil. Due to the accident, more than 150 thousand fishermen and restaurant workers were left without work.
Oil burning off the coast of Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico. The operation to eliminate the accident involved 76 ships, 5 aircraft, about 1,100 people, six thousand US National Guard troops, military personnel, as well as equipment from the Navy and Air Force USA.
Polluted marsh grass in Jimmy's Bay, near Myrtle Grove (city in the USA, State of Florida).
Pelicans covered in oil sit on a drainage hose near Port Sulfur.
The oil slick is gradually spreading across the swamp. The photo was taken in the northern part of Barataria Bay.
Oil in the waters of Grand Isle, Vermont, USA.
Oil stains are observed in the water.
The photo was taken near the site of an oil leak after an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon ultra-deepwater drilling oil platform.
Pelicans and seagulls on the shore of Ship Island, near which a boom cable floats in an attempt to contain an oil leak. Gulfport, Mississippi.
Fire on the floating drilling platform "Deepwater Horizon" in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
A thick column of smoke rises from a burning rig in the Gulf of Mexico.
Helicopter national guard Louisiana flies over Breton Lagoon.
A car damaged by Hurricane Katrina near the cypress trees in Venice, Louisiana. This area, having not had time to recover from the effects of the 2005 hurricane, is experiencing a severe oil leak, which again threatens its ecology.
Using a special system, oil is sucked out of the Gulf of Mexico.
A photo of an airplane flying over an oil spill at sea was taken from a satellite.
The photo was taken a week after the explosion on a floating drilling platform.
Shortly after the explosion, the platform, on which 126 people were working at the time of the accident, sank.
An attempt to stop an oil leak from a well at a depth of 1.5 km.
At a press conference, US Coast Guard Rear Admiral Mary Landry stated that the oil leak was estimated at 800 thousand liters per day.
The main cause of the disaster was BP’s desire to reduce the costs of developing the well, for which a number of safety standards were neglected (poor well design, insufficient cementing, changes in the design).
Gulf of Mexico. The image was taken by NASA from the Aqua satellite.
Fire boats extinguish the burning Deepwater Horizon oil rig.
A column of smoke from burning oil off the coast of Louisiana.
Oil-soaked barriers lie at a pier in Gulf Shores.
Steve Scalise shows a photo of a pelican covered in oil. The photo was taken during the questioning of BP chief executive Tony Hayward at a hearing into a rig explosion and oil leak at a government building in Washington.
Digitally enhanced satellite image ( different colors petroleum and dispersants are shown).
A young heron dies in oil-contaminated bush after an oil spill in Barataria Bay.
The ships Development Driller II and Development Driller III can be seen on the horizon, drilling relief wells at the site of the oil leak.
The oil reached Mud Lake from Barataria Bay in Plaquemines Parish.
Ships are trying to collect and contain oil off the coast of Louisiana (the blur in the photo is caused by high temperature from exhaust).
Oil collection in the bay of Barataria Bay.
A tern on the beach in Grand Isle, Louisiana.
Puddles of oil in a dispersed droplet-liquid state on the beach.
Veterinarian Study Institute marine mammals Wendy Hatchett with a dead dolphin found off the coast of Ono Island in Alabama.
An oil-stained bird in the waters of Barataria Bay.
Oil buoys line marshes in the Gulf of Mexico.
Oil slick off the coast of Louisiana.
Photographer in oil-polluted bushes near Pass Loutre.
A snake in the swamp of the Barataria Marine Reserve, which is part of national park Jean Lafite.
Pelicans at the rescue center in North Bay Village.
A small shrimp boat near DeLarge. The photo was taken at the beginning of the shrimp fishing season (the first one after the oil leak).
Silhouettes of the ships "Transocean Development Driller III" and "Transocean Development Driller II" at sunset at the site of an oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.
A boat sails through an oil slick at sunset.
Veterinarians at the Chicago Zoo anesthetize an American white pelican as they prepare the bird for examination.
An oil-covered bird on the beach on East Grand Terre Island.
A strip of oil stretches along the marshes in the bay of Barataria Bay.
A concrete pump converted into an oil pump removes a slick of oil from the shores of Dry Brad Island in St. Bernard.
The environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico continues. Numerous attempts to stop the oil leak were in vain. Oil continues to flow into the Gulf. Animals are dying. Ecologists from the Pelican mission, who conduct research in the region, discover giant accumulations of oil at great depths, the depth of which reaches 90 meters. “Deep-sea spots” are dangerous because they deplete the supply of oxygen necessary for living organisms. Now its level has already decreased by thirty percent. “If this continues, in a couple of months the flora and fauna of the bay may die,” say environmentalists.
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1) An American brown pelican (left) stands next to its pure-bred brethren on one of the islands in Barataria Bay. Numerous bird colonies nest on this island. It is home to thousands of brown pelicans, herons and roseate spoonbills, many of which are currently being affected. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
2) Brown pelicans fly over the oil boom that surrounds their island in Barataria Bay. The pelican is a symbol of the state of Louisiana, but in the 60s of the last century these birds practically disappeared from the region due to the widespread use of insecticides. However, later the population of these birds was able to be revived. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
3) Dead fish on the beach of Grand Isle, Louisiana. The British Petroleum company uses chemical reagents - the so-called. dispersants that break down oil. However, their use leads to water poisoning. Dispersants destroy circulatory system fish, and they die from profuse bleeding. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
4) An oil-covered northern gannet carcass on the beach of Grand Isle, . The state's coast was the first to encounter the oil slick and suffered the most from it. (REUTERS/Sean Gardner)
5) Biologist Mandy Tumlin with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries pulls the carcass of a dolphin from the water off the coast of Grand Isle, Louisiana. The body will be autopsied to determine the exact cause of death. (Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times/MCT)
6) A bird flies over an oil slick in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico off the island of East Grande Terre, which is located off the coast of Louisiana. The amount of oil that is located in the gulf at depths is several times greater than that that rises to the surface of the water. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
7) An Atlantic gull coated in a thick layer of oil bobs in the surf off East Grande Terre Island, Louisiana. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
8) British Petroleum prohibits workers from distributing photographs of dead animals to the press. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
9) An oil-covered dead fish floats off the coast of East Grande Terre Island on June 4, 2010 near East Grande Terre Island, Louisiana. Fish eat plankton contaminated due to the use of dispersants, and toxins spread throughout the food chain. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
10) A bird corpse covered in oil floats in the surf off East Grande Terre Island on June 3. Environmentalists believe that millions of different migratory birds that winter on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico will suffer, and a decline in the population of sea turtles, bluefin tuna and other species of marine animals will affect the entire ecosystem Atlantic Ocean. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
11) Hermit crabs in reddish-brown oil off the coast of Dauphin Island, Alabama. It is expected that the accident will be completely eliminated only by August, and may drag on for years. (AP Photo/Mobile Press-Register, John David Mercer)
12) Pelican eggs stained with oil in a nest on bird island in Barataria Bay, where thousands of brown pelicans, terns, gulls and roseate spoonbills nest. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
13) A dying heron chick sits in the mangroves on an island in Barataria Bay. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
14) Oil covered body dead dolphin lying on the ground in Venice, Louisiana. This dolphin was spotted and picked up while flying over the southwest area of the Mississippi River. "When we found this dolphin, it was literally full of oil. Oil was just pouring out of it." - say contract workers who help oil workers clean the shore. (AP Photo/Plaquemines Parish Government)
15) A brown pelican, covered in a thick layer of oil, swims in the surf off the coast of East Grande Terre Island, Louisiana. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
16) People are dying in droves in Louisiana. Ecologists are trying to save the injured birds - the surviving individuals, mainly pelicans, are urgently taken to the veterinary rehabilitation center. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
17) Now oil is being collected on the beaches of Florida. According to the portal “Credits in Krasnodar”, US authorities prohibit fishing in new territories. A third of the US fishing area in the Gulf of Mexico has already been closed. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
18) A dead turtle lies on the shore in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
19) Dead croaker in the surf in Waveland, Mississippi. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Daneen Birtel, left, of the Tri-State Bird Rescue and Research Center, Patrick Hogan, right, of the International Bird Rescue Research Center, and Christina Schillesy wash an oiled pelican in Buras, Louisiana, June 3. The center for victims of oil pollution has washing vats, special drying rooms and a small pool in which birds that miraculously escaped death learn to swim again. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Petrobras pipeline disaster in 2000. Explosion at the French chemical plant AZF in 2001. Explosion at a Pemex oil rig off the coast of Mexico in April this year. The history of oil production is rich in disasters. But the most major accident with the most severe environmental consequences to date occurred in 2010. The Deepwater Horizon oil platform, operated by the British company BP in the Gulf of Mexico, exploded off the coast of the US state of Louisiana.
She drowned
On April 20, 2010, a thunderclap rocked the Deepwater Horizon. powerful explosion which resulted in a strong fire. In total, at the time of the incident, 126 people were on the drilling platform the size of two football fields and about 2.6 million liters of petroleum products were stored. This figure alone gives an idea of the scale of the disaster.
You can imagine the consequences, knowing that the fire lasted 36 hours, after which the platform sank, and oil flowed out of a well at a depth of 1500 meters in a continuous stream. According to some sources, this leak amounted to 5 thousand barrels per day (i.e. 700 tons of oil), according to others - up to 100 thousand (about 14 thousand tons).
They tried to fight the escaping oil in different ways: they fenced it off, burned it, collected it with the help of sorbents, covered the well with a huge protective dome. BP even organized a collection campaign human hair and animal hair, which was stuffed into nylon bags and used as blotters to collect oil. The campaign unfolded on a large scale: according to the charitable organization Matter of Trust, 370 thousand salons around the world participated in the campaign, and 200 tons of hair and wool were received at collection points every day.
In the hair collection campaign, BP was quite successful. But the campaign to collect oil failed. As experts explain, the “spill and immediately collect” technology is not suitable a day after the accident - it sinks to the bottom and it is useless to install fences. Neither microorganisms that break down oil, nor sorbents simply could cope with such volumes of oil. And they failed. According to environmentalists, about 37 thousand tons of oil are hidden in the soil around the Macondo well, which is from 5 to 14% of the total volume of oil released. As the researchers note, this oil is still at the bottom, but it will gradually seep back into the water. This will lead to serious environmental consequences, since oil in the bottom layers of the sea disintegrates very slowly due to lack of oxygen.
What is the reason?
The accident on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform is recognized as one of the largest disasters in human history. She's been compared to a wreck Chernobyl nuclear power plant and is even called “oil Chernobyl.” Both disasters have one thing in common - the consequences of the crashes for a long time could not cope because such a scenario was not provided for in the project.
According to the head of the environmental company Greenpeace Russia, Vladimir Chuprov, today in the oil industry there are no technologies at all that 100% exclude the possibility of such disasters. And when they do occur, it turns out that there is no technology to eliminate the consequences of accidents of this scale.
And yet, BP had a chance to “prepare”, because experts, even before the collapse of the platform, argued that the death of the Deepwater Horizon was only a matter of time.
The oil platform was launched in February 2001. In the same year, it was leased to BP, which brought Deepwater Horizon to the Gulf of Mexico and 9 years later, in February 2010, began drilling a well in the Macondo field. Then the problems began: the drilling work was carried out in a hurry. And it’s understandable, because the platform cost BP half a million dollars every day, which means the company needed to quickly start mining and making money. They didn’t take one thing into account: in the event of a catastrophe, BP will face huge financial expenses and responsibility for liquidation of the consequences of the crash. But, as already mentioned, such a scenario was not included in the project.
Several organizations were involved in the investigation into the causes of the accident: the US Department of Homeland Security and the US Department of the Interior, the US Congress and the US Department of Justice. BP considered it its duty to conduct its own investigation into the causes of the accident. 50 specialists, led by Mark Bligh, BP's head of operational safety, were working to determine the cause of the disaster. As a result, the BP company published a report according to which the main reason for the collapse of the platform was... the human factor. And just six reasons for “concern” were named. A more thorough report was made by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Resources Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) and the US Coast Guard. Of the 35 causes of the disaster, BP was the only culprit in 21, and in 8 the company was found to be partially at fault.
Perhaps BP was right, and the human factor really became one of the reasons for the death of Deepwater Horizon - in the pursuit of profit and in an attempt to reduce the costs of developing a well, the company neglected basic safety standards. Other causes include poor well design with insufficient barriers to oil and gas, unsuccessful cementing, and last-minute changes to the well development project.
Partial blame is admitted to the owners of the oil platform, Transocean Ltd., and Halliburton, which was involved in underwater cementing of the well.
Why is the Gulf of Mexico suffering?
So, the “human factor” of BP’s activities on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform turned, first of all, into a global environmental disaster. So global that in its scale this disaster eclipsed the crash of the Exxon Valdez tanker in Alaska, the Prestige ship in Spain, and most other accidents previously recognized as the largest oil spills in terms of scale.
In a few words, the consequences of the platform crash are as follows.
During the 152 days that oil continuously leaked from the damaged well, more than 5 million barrels entered the Gulf waters.
The waters of the Gulf of Mexico are known to be rich commercial fish, oysters and shrimp, nest along the shores of the bay rare species birds, and numerous tourists come to relax on the beaches of the bay. But the spilled oil even reached coastal reserves and marshes, and the coasts of several states from Florida to Louisiana were contaminated. The latter introduced an almost complete ban on fishing. And the beaches of other states have been closed to vacationers for several months. In addition, nearly 600 sea turtles, 100 dolphins, more than 6,000 birds were found dead, and increased mortality among whales and dolphins continued over the next few years
But the greatest concern among scientists was the impact of the consequences of the accident on the climate-forming Gulf Stream. According to some estimates, the temperature of the current decreased by 10 degrees. The current began to break up into separate underwater flows. Some weather anomalies were noticed. And all this just during the oil spill after the death of the Deepwater Horizon. Of course, this can only be a coincidence, and experts have not come to a common conclusion on this issue. However, this fact still worries some scientists.
Who is to blame and what was done?
After the accident, thousands of lawsuits were filed in the courts, with BP and Transocean as the main defendants. The first to appeal to the courts were local fishermen, coastal property owners, real estate agencies and restaurateurs. In early 2012, they were joined by lawsuits from business owners and government organizations whose businesses suffered losses due to the oil spill. The lawsuits against BP were brought by shareholders of the companies, where the main plaintiffs were the pension funds of the states of New York and Ohio. The reason for the lawsuits is “providing false information about the safety of drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.”
BP and Transocean violated the law on protection clean water, which allowed the US Department of Justice to send a lawsuit to the Federal Court of the American city of New Orleans (Louisiana). The American government demanded a fine from companies ranging from 1.1 to 4.3 thousand dollars for each barrel of leaked oil. And if Transocean pleaded guilty and paid almost $1.5 billion in fines, then BP representatives decided to “put the hurt on their head” and filed a lawsuit against Transocean in the federal court of New Orleans, accusing the contractor of poorly performed work and technical violations safety, which was the main cause of the accident. And if so, then, according to BP, Transocean is obliged to bear financial liability for eliminating the consequences of the disaster.
By the way, Transocean is not the only organization that fell under “ hot hand» VR. The company accused Cameron International of liability for failures of a blowout preventer installed at the well. And Halliburton was hit with a lawsuit alleging “fraud, negligence and concealment of facts about the materials used.” However, as federal judge Carl Barbier ruled, 67% of the blame for the accident lies with BP itself, and only 30% and 3% with Transocean and Halliburton, respectively. In 2012, a federal court in New Orleans issued a decision imposing a fine of $7.8 billion on BP. This is the amount of compensation that the court ordered BP to pay to 100,000 plaintiffs affected by the oil spill. However, according to company representatives, payment of this amount does not constitute an admission of guilt in the accident.
In February 2013, a new trial began in a New Orleans court regarding the accident in the Gulf of Mexico. The actors are still the same - British BP, its partners and representatives of the American government, demanding payment of the maximum fine, i.e. 4.3 thousand dollars for each barrel of oil that fell into the water. The British company tried to challenge this claim and reduce the fine to 3 thousand per barrel. But the course of the investigation did not play into BP’s hands: it turned out that one of the company’s engineers, Kurt Meeks, tried to destroy correspondence that discussed important internal BP information. In particular, about the attempts of specialists to preserve the well after the accident. It also turned out that the oil producing company provided information that downplayed the amount of oil that leaked.
In 2014, the British government decided to intervene in the matter. In its statement, it called on the court to reconsider some of its decisions regarding the BP company, namely, to reduce the fine imposed on BP. And yet, the New Orleans court turned out to be inexorable and ruled that “the negligent or intentional actions of the British company led to the spill of 5 million barrels of oil in the Gulf,” which means that liability for such actions should be maximum.
Civil protest in GRAND ISLE, LOUISIANA. A symbolic “cemetery” dedicated to the species of flora and fauna that died as a result of the oil spill. Photo: Katherine Welles
$13.7 billion is the price that the court ordered BP to pay for the lives of 11 people killed in the accident, the largest in human history ecological disaster and for the enormous material damage suffered by businessmen and individuals.
Kristina Kuznetsova