BP Oil Spill

The BP oil spill of 2010 was the very same disaster that inspired the movie Deepwater Horizon, named for the oil rig the spill occurred on. It also inspired a less well-known episode of South Park.

BP had a history (and a long one, at that) of safety violations, so an incident wasn't really a surprise, but the magnitude was. There was an explosion on the drilling platform of Deepwater Horizon on April 20, 2010, about 45 miles off the coast of Louisiana (the Gulf of Mexico), with 4.9 million barrels of oil spilling into the ocean. That's 210,000,000 gallons. Which is...a lot of gallons.

The rig ultimately sank on April 22, 2010. 17 people were killed, and 11 injured. It's considered to be the biggest marine oil spilling in recorded history (which is basically ever, since recording started before oil drilling did). For perspective, oil has occasionally leaked into the ocean over time...mankind just really sped it up with drilling.

The extent of the damage is still unfolding, as not all claims have been settled. As of July 2016, the estimated cost to BP was at 61.6 billion. Given the damage to the area, and the deaths and injuries that occurred, it's likely the consequences will continue to unfold for years to come.

Unfortunately, the live video feeds of the oil leaking from the pipes into the ocean did not help BP keep things...quiet. The incident exploded into a media frenzy, with the Left targeting BP as a poster child for environmental damage.

BP has had to defend lawsuits designed to make skeezy lawyers money (rather than the actual victims) along the way too. You might thnk that, with all that, BP might have been shut down, but there was a lot of incentive from the West to keep it going...because wIthout it, the central banking system of England, and perhaps Europe, would have ended.

We like to keep things light, but there's just nothing funny about this piece of history.