June 1979 Ixtoc (Transocean) Oil Spill. Rachel Maddow

[keehah]

Interesting seeing essentially the same disaster in the Gulf of Mexico that happened in 1979 by a drilling company that later became Transocean. Same media coverage too.

Not exactly the same though. Sombrero is now called Tophat and the news anchor 'white guy'. ::)

June 1979 Ixtoc (Transocean) Oil Spill.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9A36A3GTcY

[k-os]

Wow, the similarities are pretty amazing.

[keehah]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ixtoc_I_oil_spill

During the removal of the pipe on Sedco 135F, the drilling mud suddenly began to flow up towards the surface. Normally, this flow can be stopped by activating shear rams contained in the blowout preventer (BOP). These rams are designed to sever and seal off the well on the ocean floor; however in this case drill collars had been brought in line with the BOP and the BOP rams were not able to sever the thick steel walls of the drill collars leading to a catastrophic blow out.

The drilling mud was followed by a large quantity of oil and gas at an increasing flow rate. The oil and gas fumes exploded on contact with the operating pump motors, starting a fire which led to the collapse of the Sedco 135F drilling tower. The collapse caused damage to underlying well structures. The damage to the well structures led to the release of significant quantities of oil into the gulf...

Aftermath

In the next nine months, experts and divers including Red Adair were brought in to contain and cap the oil well. Approximately an average of ten thousand to thirty thousand barrels per day were discharged into the Gulf until it was finally capped on 23 March 1980, nearly 10 months later. Prevailing currents carried the oil towards the Texas coastline. The US government had two months to prepare booms to protect major inlets. Eventually, in the US, 162 miles (261 km) of beaches and 1421 birds were affected by 3,000,000 barrels (480,000 m3) of oil. Pemex spent $100 million to clean up the spill and avoided paying compensation by asserting sovereign immunity.