BP Oil Spill

British Petroleum spill of 2010 Over the past decade our country has experienced many catastrophes that have literally crippled the nation economically, socially, and financially. Most recently, our country has begun another crisis, this time in the Gulf of Mexico. British Petroleum’s underwater pipeline, Deepwater Horizon, catastrophically failed and began spewing hundreds of thousands of barrels of petroleum daily. Currently BP plans to create a relief pipeline to fix the Deepwater Horizon and pay for all the damages that their pipeline is causing. On the other hand, President Barack Obama is demanding that BP take responsibility and pay for all necessary reparations such as cleaning the coastal shores and aid the people affected by
With this in mind Obama is taking steps toward a safer way of deep ocean oil drilling. He has ordered the immediate inspection of all deep water operations in the Gulf of Mexico, enforced that no permits will be allowed for drilling new wells without completing the 30-day safety and environmental review, and finally a new examination of the safety and environment procedures for oil and gas exploration and development (Daily Compilation). With this preventative measure, Obama hopes to succeed in never allowing another oil catastrophe like this occur in the
Getting anything to go 5,000 feet below the ocean surface is already a huge dilemma, yet British Petroleum has maneuvered their way around this obstacle and has succeeded in reaching that depth. One of the procedures that have been used was the use of an underwater robot. This robot was remotely controlled from the surface of the ocean. The aim of the robot was to make two precise cuts on the pipe, so a cap that was connected to a riser would send the oil to the recovery ships. After countless hours of tedious work, the cap succeeded and decreased the amount of oil spewing into the ocean (Obama Launches). Another procedure taken by British Petroleum was the “Junk shot”. The “junk shot...is an injection into the well of materials ranging from rubber tire shards to golf balls” (Christian Science). British Petroleum tended on using the “junk shot”, but it had jeopardized the effectiveness of the “top kill”. The top kill “involves pumping drilling mud at a rate of 40 to 50 barrels per minute to reduce the pressure of the oil's flow, ultimately stopping it altogether” (Christian Science). The “Top Kill” didn’t go through as planned and failed. With this news, British Petroleum was running out of options. Bob Dunley, British Petroleum’s managing director, said, “that the company's best hope was not in capping the well