Gulf of Mexico/BP Oil Spill
 

20 April 2010
Deepwater Horizon rig explodes, 11 workers killed. The rig was licensed to BP, drilling for the oil giant's Macondo project at a depth of 5,000 feet.

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21 April
115 remaining workers evacuated from rig.

22 April
Deepwater Horizon, worth in excess of $560m, collapses into the sea - producing a 5-mile long oil slick.

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25 April
Efforts to activate the well's blowout preventer fail.

28 April
The US Coast Guard warns that the oil spill could become the worst in American history, announcing that 5,000 barrels of oil a day (210,000 gallons) are leaking into the Gulf of Mexico - five times greater than initial estimates.

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29 April
US President Barack Obama pledges "every single available resource", including the military, to contain the spill. Louisiana declares a state of emergency, Obama says BP is responsible for the clean up.

30 April
The US government rules that there will be no drilling in new areas until the cause of the accident is known.

BP says it will pay all legitimate claims and the cost of the clean-up.

2 May
Obama makes his first visit to the Gulf Coast. BP begins work on the first relief well.

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6 May
Oil reaches the shores of the Chandeleur Islands off the Louisiana coast.

7 May
BP's 'top hat' attempt to place a dome over the top the well fails.

10 May
BP gains US approval to spray chemicals on the oil spill.

14 May
Obama slams BP and partners over the "ridiculous spectacle" of trading blame for the oil spill - after executives from BP, Transocean and Halliburton appear at Congressional hearings in Washington

18 May
The US almost doubles its no-fishing zone to 19 per cent of US waters in the Gulf of Mexico.

20 May
Greenpeace activists scale BP's headquarters in London, hoisting a flag over the oil giant's entrance with the words "British Polluters".
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21 May
BP launches a live camera of the leak, as its containment rate drops to just 2,000 barrels a day.

26 May
BP starts its 'top kill' operation to block the oil well with mud and debris.

28 May
Obama's second tour of the Louisiana coast. "I am the president and the buck stops with me," he says.

29 May
BP chief executive Tony Hayward makes his first trip to the Gulf.

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30 May
BP's 'top kill' plan fails. White House adviser warns the spill is "the biggest environmental disaster" ever faced by the US.

1 June
BP loses a third of its market value after its shares plunge as much as 17 per cent during the day's trading.

US launches a criminal and civil investigation into whether BP broke any laws in its handling of the oil spill.

4 June
BP fits a containment cap onto the well using remote control robots.

5 June
Obama's third visit to Louisiana, the president brands the spill "brutally unfair".

6 June
BP says it has captured 10,500 barrels of oil (439,950 gallons) in the last 24 hours.

7 June
BP announces that total clean-up costs have now reached $1.25 bn

8 June
Obama reacts to criticism over the US government's handling of the disaster, saying he needs time to look for "whose ass to kick".

With a final evaluation of the past 2+ months, we need to wonder, where are all of those Drill-Baby-Drill supporters?

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They seem to be awfully quiet right now.

It should be a requirement that relief wells must be in place prior to starting or resuming any drilling operation.

That's a good start. I'm wanting to learn more about the criminal investigation and what exactly is going to take place with what they are going to be charged with. The 11 people that lost their lives on that rig, and many more that could've deserve higher standards of saftey and regulation. Apparently BP as an organization knew about the potential for a rupture a long amount of time before that actual accident.

If that is true, they absolutely need to be held completely responsible.

Should BP be entirely blamed for this? It was their drilling rig, and their responsibility. I know some peolpe are hesitant to hold trillion dollar companies accountable for anything, but in this case it seems to be fairly clear. What about the cleanup efforts? Are they doing enough? Florida aleady has tar balls on the west-coast beaches, and it is estimated within a few weeks the east coast, along with Miami/the Keys could see tar balls as well. The oil sheens aren't doing enough.

What about the wildlife? What needs to be done about that? There are so many aspects to this heaping pile of crap that has gone on, and of course republicans are now comparing the FEMA respone from Bush to that of Obama in this oil spill? Any relevance? I think not.

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As much as I hate seagulls, seeing them covered in oil makes me sad.

It's all a pretty big shit fest. I think blaming Obama is kinda stupid, though. The fact of the matter is, there should have been things in place (like a relief well) to prevent this from happening before it happened. Also, we should be a lot better prepared to handle this sort of situation when it DOES happen. A lot of people claim that this is an unusual thing for us to have to deal with and we don't really have a lot of technology to fix this problem a mile under water. My question is, if that is the case, what business do we have drilling a mile under water? This is all just extreme lack of foresight or caring.

I didn't even notice it was an animal, at first. It looked like a clump of goo. :(

You have to drill to create a relief well...

NUH UH, I THOUGHT MAYBE IT WOULD JUST APPEAR

I'm not retarded and the point still stands. Rather than drilling a relief well after the fact, it should be done prior to the incident.

This atleast makes me feel a little bit better about the situation:

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BP's stock over the past 90 days.

I really don't see where anyone gets off criticizing BP. Just before the disaster everyone was bitching about the conflict in the Middle East and the war for oil, as it were. Of course we have reserves here at home, but we're saving those for emergency. Then we have oil companies that drill off coast in a hard to reach place under the sea floor. I'm not going to google anything here but I'd wager this is probably the only time an oil rig has failed catastrophically in all the time the technology has been available. I applaud the company that drills for oil in the sea floor. Don't get me wrong, what happened is a disaster. Car accidents are one of the major leading causes of death but we don't condemn them do we? Quite the opposite, I bet most of those stupid protesters with nothing better to do likely drove there. I don't mind true environmentalist, I just don't like hypocrites complaining about oil companies. If it's so bad, why not go to college and try to invent an alternative, rather than bitching like little girls.

+Rep for anyone who can identify who said that without using google

Sher?

David Spade?

American Oil should belong to the American people. We should all profit off of it, and when shit goes wrong we shold all pay for it. It's what runs this country, it definatly shouldn't beliong to a private entity. My 0.02$.

American's are both lazy and greedy. They'll take your $0.02 and invest in it, but they sure won't listen to what it said.

Thats not a seagull.

"They give you $100.00, and take back ninety-nine!"

I still feel like I won, in that situation.

Those two points don't correlate at all. The issue at hand is Millions upon million upon millions of gallons of oil that have been spilled into the ocean and now almost 60 days since the explosion that killed 11 workers on the rig and nothing effective have being done. You obviously don't live on coastal waters near the coast, because you would understand the profound effect of the fishing industry, beaching industry, anything shore releated industry that are going to lose millions, if not billions of dollars combined through work and travel because of fishing waters being closed, coastal workers being shut off to tourists.

I believe there are more instances of this happening that are either swept under the rug. 11 people died in an explosion which is why this news story was first covered, and it has turned into a complete catastrophe.

Comparing car accidents and the profound carelessness of a corporation that knew of an upcoming disaster who didn't take any action are comparisons of two completely different things. Apples and oranges.

So you think we should applaud them spilling millions of gallons of oil into our ocean? You think we should just let it slide, what has happened? You think their purpousely lied about estimations of how big the leak is should go unnoticed? You honestly think that Americans are going to sit back and watch what is absolutely ours be destroyed be any corporation and let it just blow by? Hell no. So many companies lives are at stake. There are months and months and months of cleanup ahead after this, and you think that we should just blow it off? That we should just ignore this issue and give BP a pat on the back for being a multi-billion dollar corporation? Hell no. They are, and should be considered fully responsible for what has happened, and should have taken bigger precautions before anyone complains about the backlash of what's happening. I hope BP falls under, I honestly do not care about them. I do find it unfortunate for gas station owners in the United States that are taking big hits from people not stopping at their stations, but they'll be fine. Worst case scenario is they go bankrupt and have to sign a new contract with a different provider.

If you turned off Rush Limbaugh for a few minutes and 'bothered googling' something, you would see that researched for alternative fuels have been going on for half a century, a dramatic change isn't going to come overnight. But in lieu of this oil spill, I suspect that the Obaam administration is going to unveil a new energy bill that may completely change how our country is dependent on oil. It's about damn time. The corruption has to stop.

God damn! It's going to be a really really good time to buy BP stock when it finally bottoms out.

Probably.