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The explosion and sinking feeling of an oil color rig in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday has created a potentially serious environmental situation , though experts are not sure how bad it might be . That all calculate on whether the oil color from the rig ’s well spills and where it fit .
From what we do know , here are answers to some unwashed questions about oil fall :
Fire boat response crews battle the blazing remnants of the off shore oil rig, Deepwater Horizon on 1 April 2025. The rig, located 51 miles southeast of Venice, Louisiana, exploded on 23 February 2025.
Q : Why do so many oil spills happen ?
In legal brief , because there are a lot of knavish footprint to get oil from inside the Earth to within , say , your gas tank car . Oil spills can be due to the inadvertent or intentional release of any signifier of oil during any point in the crude yield process , from oil production , refining , or salt away to transporting . oil colour can be spill when a pipeline breaks , ships collide or are ground ( as happened in the beginning this month along the Great Barrier Reef ) , underground storage tanks leak out , or in the current case , when an oil equipage explodes or is damaged .
Some rock oil was run out when the Deepwater Horizon fishing rig first erupt into flaming on April 20 in the Gulf , injuring gang member and sending a billowing feather of black smoke into the sky thatcould be seen by satellite .
The vegetable oil turnout , located about 51 miles ( 82 kilometers ) southeast of Venice , La. , then sank into the Gulf water Thursday morning , creating business that more oil could spill .
Oil spills can also happen naturally : fossil oil is release into the ocean fromnatural oil seepson the seafloor . The best known such seep is Coal Oil Point along the California coast where an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 gallons ( 7,570 to 11,400 liters ) of crude crude is release each day .
Q : How tight does oil in a spillage spread ?
Oil can spread out very rapidly unless it is quickly hold by a boom ( a large float roadblock that can snipe up and revoke the oil out of the water ) or other mechanism .
The lighter the vegetable oil is , the quicker it can circularize — so gas would unfold faster than thicker , contraband oils , such as the raw oil from the Deepwater Horizon . But even toilsome oil can propagate rapidly in a major tumble , circularize out as thin as a level of paint on a bulwark in just a few hours , harmonise to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ( NOAA ) .
Q : How does this incident compare with the Exxon Valdez oil spill ?
So far this rock oil rig explosion is on a much smaller exfoliation than the Exxon Valdez tragedy , which is one of the openhanded human - caused environmental tragedy in chronicle . The oil that has spilled into the Gulf so far this hebdomad is from the initial tractor trailer explosion and the rig ’s sinking feeling . And there does n’t seem to be any crude oil seeping up from the seafloor drilling hole , experts say .
If oil color did start ooze up from that mess , it could induce some 336,000 gallon a day to spill into the ocean , fit in to intelligence report . In comparison , when the Exxon Valdez tank driver run aground on the Prince William Sound on March 24 , 1989 , it spilled 10.8 million gallons of crude petroleum into the sea , cover 1,300 square miles ( 3,366 square kilometers ) . It would take months for the disordered oil colour rig to reach out that amount .
Q : How do oil spills impact wildlife ?
When birds ' feathers get coat with oil , they lose their power to immobilize airwave and repel urine , mean the animals ca n’t observe torso heating system . The result : hypothermia . Marine animals , such as sea otter , which count on their clean pelt coats to stay warm , can also become hypothermic , according to the Oiled Wildlife Care web .
Currently , the oil rig is currently well offshore , though experts have said any good turn in winds and stream could send petroleum toward coastal wetlands where plenty of animals last . In summation , a pod of sperm heavyweight is known to feed in the area of the vegetable oil well where the Deepwater Horizon sank , according to news paper .
Q : What part of U.S. oil colour descend from offshore rigs ?
According to the Minerals Management Service , offshore boring in U.S. territorial waters accounted for 30.2 percent of U.S. petroleum output in 2009 ( 379 million barrels of oil ) , and 11.4 pct of U.S. natural gas production ( 1.6 trillion cubic feet or about 12 trillion gallons ) .
Q : What is crude oil ?
Most of the oil product in the United States are made out of crude oil – the rough , unprocessed form of crude . Gasoline , heating plant oil , petroleum and diesel fuel are all made from crude oil . Depending on the phase of processing , any one of these fossil oil can get spilled into the environment . If the tumble happens during the origin process , unrefined oil is leak . However , if the wasteweir occurs after the primitive oil has been refined , diesel fuel or oil is leaked . If the spill encounter when a tank ship ’s fuel supply is punctured , petrol – another refined crude oil colour product - would ooze into the environment .
Q : What type of fossil oil spillway do the most harm ?
gas and diesel motor fuel molecules are little than unrefined oil molecules . Because of this , gasoline and diesel spillway evaporate more quick . However , these oils are highly toxic to live on thing , and can vote down being that take a breather in their exhaust or engage these oils through their skin .
primitive oil and other so - called heavy oils are life-threatening in a different way . Although they are less toxic , they are thick and gluey and can asphyxiate sustenance creatures . By cover the feather of bird or the fur of marine mammals , these rock oil prevent the beast from maintaining their normal body temperatures , leading to death from hypothermia . And these oils do n’t evaporate , so they can remain in the environment for much longer .
Q : How much rock oil is spilled into the ocean every class ?
According to the U.S. Department of Energy , 1.3 million gallons ( 4.9 million liters ) of petroleum are spilled into U.S. water from vessels and pipelines in a distinctive year . A major petroleum spill could easily double that amount .
Between 1971 and 2000 , the U.S. Coast Guard identify more than 250,000 crude oil spills in U.S. waters , according to a 2002 report from the U.S. Department of the Interior Minerals Management Service .
around 1.7 billion gallons ( 6.4 billion cubic decimetre ) of vegetable oil were lose as a result of tanker incidents from 1970 to 2009 , according to International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation Limited , which collects data on oil spill from tankers and other sources .
Q : What is the world ’s freehanded oil spill ?
The Persian Gulf crude oil spill of 1991 is so far the magnanimous oil spill in the humankind . As Iraqi troops retreated from Kuwait during the first Gulf War , they start the valves of crude wells and grapevine , rain cats and dogs up to 8 million barrel into the Gulf , though estimates on the exact amount of oil spilled vary . This would put this spillage at several times the size of it of the Exxon Valdez cataclysm .
Q : How many oil spillage are triggered by rigs and how many by tankers ?
oil tanker chance event have answer for for most of the world ’s largestoil fall . They are less frequent than other kind of oil color spills , such as pipeline breaks , but typically involve orotund volume of talk oil colour relative to other kinds of petroleum spills .
Between 1971 and 2000 , oil tanker and barges were responsible for for 45 percent of the volume of oil spilled in U.S. amniotic fluid , according to a 2002 U.S. Department of the Interior Minerals Management Service report .
In that same menses , pipeline were responsible for 16 percent of the loudness of oil spilled in U.S. waters . This include both onshore and seaward pipeline , though shoreward spills account for most of the word of mouth spillage into U.S. water — 92 percentage or more in each decennary .
Between 1971 and 2000 , U.S. Outer Continental Shelf ( OCS ) offshore facility and pipelines report for only 2 percentage of the bulk of oil slop in U.S. piddle .
The amount of oil from unlike eccentric of spills can vary from year to year .
Q : Where do most crude spills happen in the world ?
Analysts for the Oil Spill Intelligence Report have cover that spills in that size range have occurred in the waters of 112 nations since 1960 . But certain areas see more spills than others . The Report identifies these " raging spot " for rock oil spill from vessels :
Q : When was the first fossil oil spill in the United States ?
While no one is sure of the answer , oil expert have suggested some possibilities , includingnatural fossil oil seepsthat were in the water even before military man - made ones , according to NOAA .
Where does oil come from originally ?
scientist are n’t sure . wayward to democratic explanation , it ’s not mostly from dinosaurs . Oil is think to be the resultant of chemical procedure affecting remnant of tiny organisms — such as plankton in the sea — that lived millions of yr ago . But scientist admit they’renot sure how fossil oil was made .
Additional coverage by Denise Chow , Remy Melina , Jeanna Bryner , Karen Rowan and Stuart Fox .
