Thirty-One Years Since Third Worst Oil Spill  

Posted by Oilism.com on January 8th, 2011 at 12:38am

Thirty-One Years Since Third Worst Oil Spill  

Article by Lynthomas

32 percent of the Gulf of Mexico remains off limits for fishing, as a result of the massive oil spill, in spite of BP finally managing to funnel some of the spilling oil and capturing it in surface boats.

This is only a temporary answer, however, particularly in the face of the commencement of the hurricane season.

The 31st anniversary of the 1979 Pemex Ixtoc oil spill in Mexico’s Bay of Campeche was on 3rd June. It took over 357 days before relief oil wells were successfully drilled and leaked 3.3m barrels of oil.

The Ixtoc spill was in just 160 feet of water, 50 miles offshore. An exploratory drill bit hit soft strata below the sea floor, creating hydrostatic pressure. When workers went to alter location, it set off a chain reaction, causing a blowout and explosion, when the oil and gas reached motors on the surface.

Equipment failure in the blowout preventer made it impossible to cut through the reinforced pipe.

Much of the oil fouled marine environments, which largely remained out of sight and out of mind, as the oil drifted offshore to deeper waters. A large amount of damage was created however, along 150 miles along the coastline of Texas.

“Ixtoc continued to leak oil more than three months after completed its first relief well,” according to Reuters. It took Pemex over twelve months to drill two relief wells.Pemex was able to follow up its efforts by pumping cement and water down the runaway well. Because the Deepwater Horizon well is at a depth of a mile under water, this is something BP will not be able to do.

Pemex never paid for the damage it created to the economy of the United States and Mexico. Neither did it pay for any environmental damage, as it hid behind sovereign immunity.

Analysts are estimating the financial bill of the current oil spill at billion. This does not include the terrifying result of a hurricane dropping oil 50m inland.

The top six largest oil spills in history are:

6.Persian Gulf, Nowruz Oil Field Spill, 1983, with 80m gallons. It was the result of a tanker collision with an oil platform. 5.A ruptured pipe line, in the Kolva River, Russia, 1994, spilt 84m gallons. Oil seeped into the Russian Arctic. 4.A Greek oil tanker, trapped in a tropical storm, collided with another ship, in 1979. 90m gallons of oil was spilt off the coast of Trinidad and Tobago.3.June 1979 the Mexican owned Pemex Inxtoc well spilt 140m gallons into the Bay of Campeche, Mexico.2.Between 380 – 520m gallons of oil were spilled into the Persian Gulf, in 1991, when retreating Iraqi forces opened valves at an offshore oil terminal, also dumping oil from several tankers. The released oil covered a 4000 sq mile area, to a depth of 4 inches. 1.2010, Deepwater Horixon oil spill leaking at a rate of 60,000 barrels a day since April 20th

There are another 29 serious oil spills before the Exxon Valdex oil spill of 1989, which spilt 10.8m gallons of oil along the Alaskan coast.

About the Author

Dr Wendy Stenberg-Tendys and her husband are CEO’s of YouMe Support Foundation (http://youmesupport.org) provide high school education grants for children who are without hope. You can help in this really great project by taking a few minutes to check out the Sponsor a Student program at Win a Resort (http://winaresort.com). It really will change your life and the life of some really needy kids.Feel free to contact Wendy on admin@youmesupport.org

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