OIL SPILL

Oil Spill



Title

Outline

Attention

The paper focuses on the oil spill and its issues that is emerging in the world.

The paper discloses about the facts emerging due to oil spill and how badly it is effecting the society

Statement of the problem at the Theoretical

The Environmental Impact of Oil

Needs

Overview of the Topic

The worst accidental marine oil spill in history began on April 20, 2010 with an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon, a semi-submersible offshore drilling rig owned by Transocean and leased by British Petroleum (BP). The rig was drilling for oil in the Macondo Prospect in the Gulf of Mexico, about 50 miles off the coast of Louisiana and, at the time of the accident a production casing was being installed by the Halliburton Energy Company. Oil drilling is an imperfect process and spills and leaks are not uncommon.

However, a series of major spills and accidents in 1969 and 1970 led (in the short term) to greater government regulation of this industry. The first occurred in January 1969: a blowout on an oil platform in the Santa Barbara channel (California) released an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 barrels of oil over an 11-day period. This was the largest offshore drilling accident in the United States until the Macondo blowout and drew national attention to the environmental dangers of offshore drilling. Serious accidents also occurred in February and December 1970 in the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast. Independent of significant oil spills, offshore oil drilling, imposes known costs on the environment from smaller leaks from platforms and oil spills from pipelines or tankers transporting oil. In addition, the process of drilling requires expulsion of large amounts of water contaminated by drilling fluids and metal cuttings (Gundlach, 2007).

The Environmental and Economical Aspects

Oil Spills in the Ocean

What happens when there is an oil spill in the ocean? Despite the spillage of tens of millions of tons of oil into the oceans over many years, evidence does not exist of irreversible damage to seawater or even to the coastal environment, according to a report by the International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation. However, fragile coastal environments that become heavily polluted may suffer for many years until recovery is complete. In the initial period, the damage to densely populated coastal areas or seaside resorts may amount to great economic cost.

Impacts on Different area

The oil spill affected everything from people to food to animals and businesses. It is also having an extremely detrimental effect on the economy. If the government had only put the extra money and time into drilling a second well, none of these things would happened. The United States is the only country that does not mandate a relief well. It has ended up being more costly and time consuming to clean everything up rather than being safe. A relief certainly should be required in the United States, along with regular checkups on the wells.

Impact of the Gulf Oil Spill

It may be several years before the full economic, ecological, and social impact of the ...