In 1858 in a field in Pennsylvania an oil revolution began with the drilling of the first deep well. Before this time oil had been scraped off the earths’ surface barely clean enough to suffice the industrial revolution that had just begun. With the ability to drill deeper and tap into oil reserves that had accumulated below the earths’ surface came the rapid accumulation and demand of liquid oil that helped fuel the ambition of human technology and society. By 1896 the technology and demand for oil lead to the first offshore oil wells, this opened up a whole new vat of oil reservoirs that had never before been tapped. Already as human consumption increased new ways of extracting oil were being developed. Nowadays, as human demand for oil still increases and oil reserves are decreasing, oil companies are drilling deeper and deeper into the sea floor to exploit more difficult oil reservoirs. But at what risk!?Oil has allowed humankind to advance through technological eras at a much faster rate giving society choices and freedom that had never been available before. However, this has not come without sacrifice with the human addiction to oil leading to increased air and water pollution, rapid land usage, over-harvesting of the oceans, and increased greenhouse gas emissions and climate change etc. Now as oil reservoirs become more difficult to reach new pressures are arising with oil companies taking more risks to reach them.
The problem with deep sea drilling is the pressure accumulated at the drill hole bottom. The deeper the water column and the deeper the well results in an increased chance of a blowout (which is where a huge pressure release occurs and blows out the top of the well). Furthermore, if something does go wrong in the deep oceans it is very difficult to go deep underwater and fix the problem as it is too deep for divers and hence remote operated machinery is needed instead. The latest catastrophe occurred on April 20th 2010 on the Deep Horizon Drilling Rig which was part of BP’s drilling team in the Gulf of Mexico. Due to a failed blowout preventer, under high pressure, methane gas from the well shot up and out of the drill column, igniting and then exploding and sinking the Deep Horizon Rig. 11 workers lost there lives in the incident. Days later an oil slick began to form above the well site as oil gushed out into the Gulf of Mexico. This is still ongoing and BP estimate that 60.000 barrels of oil a day are leaking into the Gulf of Mexico destroying habitats and coastlines.
BP have spent £1.35billion on attempts at cleaning the spills and stopping the leak with many methods being unsuccessful so far. This included trying to cap the leak with a 125-tonne steel dome which failed due to accumulation of methane hydrates blocking the opening at the top of the dome where is connects. Other efforts included the pumping of drilling fluids to lower the flow of the oil in the well allowing cement to be poured into the well head and block the flow. Alas this also failed. Now there is a last resort to drill relief wells to lower the pressure from the main well allowing it to be blocked off for good.
There are many speculations as to why this catastrophe has happened and what we should do to prevent it from happening again. Some blame BP stating that the rig should not have been drilling due to the concerns over the blow out preventer. However the truth is that the incident in the Gulf of Mexico could have happened to any oil company and the US inspection regulations should have been thorough enough to notice a flaw like this on the rig and temporarily stop drilling till it was fixed. This has already been noted by governments and the number of rig inspections has increased rapidly since the incident. Others take a more extreme view stating that deep sea drilling should be banned altogether, but the truth of the matter is that as human society develops there is more and more demand for energy and resources and oil is currently top of that list. Without deep sea drilling the oil companies would not be able to reach demand of consumption which is increasing at the same rate that oil companies are finding oil. We need to learn from this mistake and catastrophe and put more energy into advancing the technology of deep sea drilling to make it a low risk and safe as possible. This is a step that all oil companies and governments should take.