"accidentally crashes it. Exxon Valdez oil spill The ""Exxon Valdez"" oil spill occurred in Prince William Sound, Alaska, March 24, 1989, when ""Exxon Valdez"", an oil tanker owned by Exxon Shipping Company, bound for Long Beach, California, struck Prince William Sound's Bligh Reef, 1.5 miles west of Tatitlek, Alaska at 12:04 am local time and spilled (or a mass of 35,000 metric tonnes) of crude oil over the next few days. It is considered to be one of the most devastating human-caused environmental disasters. The ""Valdez"" spill is the second largest in US waters, after the 2010 ""Deepwater Horizon"" oil"
"estimated the company's total spill-related expenses do not exceed $37.2 billion. The United States Oil Pollution Act of 1990 limits BP's liability for non-cleanup costs to $75 million unless gross negligence is proven. BP has said it would pay for all cleanup and remediation regardless of the statutory liability cap. Nevertheless, some Democratic lawmakers sought to pass legislation that would increase the liability limit to $10 billion. Analysts for Swiss Re have estimated that the total insured losses from the accident could reach $3.5 billion. According to UBS, final losses could be $12 billion. According to Willis Group Holdings, total"
"The O'Brien's Group O'Brien's Response Management is the largest oil spill management company in the United States Company founder Jim O'Brien fought his first oil spill in 1969 as an officer with the United States Coast Guard. In 1983 he retired to form his own company, O'Brien's Oil Pollution Service, known as ""OOPS Inc."", in Slidell, Louisiana. O'Brien soon gained fame in the 1980s as the ""Red Adair of oil spill cleanup"". O'Brien also helped manage the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989. Following that event the United States enacted the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, requiring ships to carry"
"and repaired at a shipyard in New York City. After the collision, ""World Prodigy""<nowiki>'</nowiki>s captain, Iakovos Georgudis, was charged with two violations of the Clean Water Act and Ballard Shipping with one. Both the captain and company pleaded guilty; Ballard paid $1 million and Georgudis $10,000 in fines. In December 1990, the National Transportation Safety Board released the results of their investigation of the spill, finding that Captain Georgudis had been suffering from sleep deprivation and was distracted by working on paperwork at the time of the collision. ""World Prodigy"", having arrived at the mouth of the bay earlier than"
"to approve the settlement, saying its actions ""did not constitute gross negligence or willful misconduct"". Under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, a company responsible is liable for only $75 million in economic damages, provided it did not exhibit ""gross negligence"" and the federal government picks up the next $1 billion. In response to the BP filing and in order to ensure that BP could not use its filing and any possible acceptance of the settlement to escape a judgement of gross negligence, on August 31, 2012, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) filed papers describing the spill as an"
"needed on the rig. It also decided not to rerun the software when it stuck with only six centralizers, and ignored or misread warnings from other key tests, the panel said. On 5 January 2011, the White House oil spill commission released a final report detailing faults by the companies that led to the spill. The panel found that BP, Halliburton, and Transocean had attempted to work more cheaply and thus helped to trigger the explosion and ensuing leakage. The report states: ""Whether purposeful or not, many of the decisions that BP, Halliburton, and Transocean made that increased the risk"
"1989 Narragansett Bay oil spill On June 23, 1989, several hundred thousand gallons of fuel oil were spilled at the mouth of the Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island after the tanker MV ""World Prodigy"" ran aground on a reef near Aquidneck Island. ""World Prodigy"", a long ship operated by Ballard Shipping under the Greek flag, was inbound to Providence and Tiverton, Rhode Island when at about 16:40 local time she ran aground on Brenton Reef, about offshore from Brenton Point State Park, after passing the wrong side of a buoy marking the channel. She had a cargo of about 8.1"
"Mega Borg Oil Spill The ""Mega Borg"" Oil Spill occurred in the Gulf of Mexico on June 8, 1990, roughly 50 miles off the coast of Texas, when the oil tanker ""Mega Borg"" caught on fire and exploded. The cleanup was one of the first practical uses of bioremediation. At 11:30 PM on the evening of Saturday June 8, 1990, an explosion in the cargo room of the Norwegian oil tanker the ""Mega Borg"" “ruptured the bulkhead between the pump room and the engine room”, causing the ship to catch fire and begin to leak oil. The 853-foot-long, 15-year-old vessel"
"out punitive damages against Cameron International, the manufacturer of the blowout preventer on the Deepwater Horizon rig. On 4 September 2014, U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier ruled in the Clean Water Act trial that BP was guilty of gross negligence and willful misconduct under the Act. He described BP's actions as ""reckless,"" while he said Transocean's and Halliburton's actions were ""negligent."" He apportioned 67% of the blame for the spill to BP, 30% to Transocean, and 3% to Halliburton. Fines would be apportioned commensurate with the degree of negligence of the parties, measured against the number of barrels of oil"
"by BP for all costs related to the oil spill, including those arising under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. In December 2015, U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier ordered Anadarko to pay a civil fine under the Clean Water Act of $159.5 million, or $50 per barrel of oil spilled as a result of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion. The judge stated Anadarko was not at fault for the spill, but the company's 25% ownership stake made it responsible. Barbier wrote that the $159.5 million fine ""strikes the appropriate balance between Anadarko's lack of culpability and the extreme seriousness"
"October 2018, the continuing spill was approaching the level of the 2010 ""Deepwater Horizon"" oil spill, the largest marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry. Taylor Energy Taylor Energy was an independent American oil company that drilled in the Gulf of Mexico and was based in New Orleans, Louisiana. The company was founded in 1979 by Patrick F. Taylor. Following his death in 2004, his wife Phyllis Taylor assumed ownership and became the chairman and CEO—making her the wealthiest woman in Louisiana. Taylor actively supported the reconstruction of New Orleans after its destruction during Hurricane Katrina. The"
"for the consequences of oil pollution. The US Coast Guard issues a Certificate of Financial Responsibility which proves that the potential polluter has both the means and ability to pay for the consequences of such a spill up to the limits specified under Oil Pollution Act 1990. Shoreline Managers Shoreline Managers Ltd is an American marine insurance company. It supplies guarantees to the US Coast Guard to enable a Certificate of Financial Responsibility to be issued to its members, and has been doing so since becoming operational in conjunction with the effective date of the legislation, December 28, 1994. Shoreline"
"mentioned as things leading to the disaster. According to ""The Wall Street Journal"" the U.S. government and Gulf Coast states had prepared an offer to BP for a $16 billion settlement. However, it was not clear if this deal had been officially proposed to BP and if BP has accepted it. On 4 September 2014, U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier ruled BP was guilty of gross negligence and willful misconduct. He described BP's actions as ""reckless."" He said Transocean's and Halliburton's actions were ""negligent."" He apportioned 67% of the blame for the spill to BP, 30% to Transocean, and 3%"
"of fishermen. The head of BP Group told CNN's Brian Todd on 28 April that the accident could have been prevented and focused blame on Transocean, which owned and partly manned the rig. Transocean came under fire from lawyers, representing the fishing and tourism businesses that were hit by the oil spill, and the United States Department of Justice for seeking to use a Limitation of Liability Act of 1851 to restrict its liability for economic damages to $26.7 million. During Congressional testimony, Transocean and BP blamed each other for the disaster. It emerged that a ""heated argument"" broke out"
"would do a number of things, including creating multiple new federal response teams, creating a new fleet of special containment booms and skimmers. Mega Borg Oil Spill The ""Mega Borg"" Oil Spill occurred in the Gulf of Mexico on June 8, 1990, roughly 50 miles off the coast of Texas, when the oil tanker ""Mega Borg"" caught on fire and exploded. The cleanup was one of the first practical uses of bioremediation. At 11:30 PM on the evening of Saturday June 8, 1990, an explosion in the cargo room of the Norwegian oil tanker the ""Mega Borg"" “ruptured the bulkhead"
"as Amazon Watch and ChevronToxico have attempted to document the oil spills, ecological damage and human impacts of these operations. Prof. Judith Kimerling of CUNY School of Law in 1991 published a book ""Amazon Crude"" () which details many of these problems. Petroecuador has been the sole owner and operator of the oil facilities since 1990. In 2000–2008, the company was responsible for 1,415 oil spills. Petroecuador has also failed to clean up sites that were its responsibility under the joint venture. Comparable national companies like Petrobras, Petro-Canada, Statoil and Qatar Petroleum have much higher environmental standards. Between the years"
"in the world, and the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history. The platform was built by Hyundai Heavy Industries in South Korea and completed in 2001. It was owned by Transocean, operated under the Marshalese flag of convenience, and was under lease to BP until September 2013. At the time of the explosion, the ""Deepwater Horizon"" was on Mississippi Canyon Block 252, referred to as the Macondo Prospect, in the United States sector of the Gulf of Mexico, about off the Louisiana coast. In March 2008, the mineral rights to drill for oil on the Macondo Prospect were purchased by"
"with plain indifference to worker safety and health""—was the company's failure to develop clear, written procedures for how to change and put idle pressure vessels into service. In the first civil trial regarding the explosion, four workers filed suit against Williams Olefins LLC and parent company Williams Companies, Inc. for their alleged negligence. The representation for the Plaintiffs, Arnold & Itkin LLP, argued that Williams Companies was ultimately responsible for the explosion because they maintained control over the plant’s daily operations and approved its safety measures. The representation for the Defendants argued that Williams Olefins, as the holding company for"
"by the collision. Neither Motiva or Total, which operate the other two refineries, initially publicly responded to the spill. In its response to the incident, the tanker's operator, AET Inc. said it was cooperating with investigators, and was prepared to bear the costs of cleanup, but noted that responsibility for the incident had not been determined. The company also refused to name the pilots in charge of the ship at the time of the collision. On January 27, the tanker was removed from the waterway, and soon after, limited traffic through the channel was allowed to resume. In a statement"
"government provided funding for the spill on January 14 and it became a United States Coast Guard directed response. The Governments of Puerto Rico, the United States, and other groups, sued the owners of the two vessels for clean up costs and natural resource damages. Criminal prosecutions were brought against the owners of the two vessels due to issues of crew negligence and the act of knowingly sending a vessel to sea in an unseaworthy condition. The three owners of the barge were charged with criminal negligence based on laws from the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. One of the"
"the 1990s, a history of poor maintenance and under-staffing gave the refinery a reputation for being a hazardous workplace. Throughout the 1990s, it led the US refining industry in the number of environmental and safety code violations. These poor conditions culminated in two catastrophic accidents. In the first, a 1997 hydrocracker explosion killed one worker. In the second of these, four workers died and a fifth was hospitalized in a 1999 naphtha explosion. A maintenance supervisor refused to shut down the unit after corroding valves failed to stop the flow of the extremely hazardous substance. In November 2010, the refinery"
"acquisition in late 2014, all Hess gas stations will be rebranded as Speedway gas stations by the end of 2017. The transaction completed the transformation of Hess into an energy company focused solely on exploration and production, effectively reversing the Amerada merger almost 50 years prior. ""The New York Times"" reported on October 28, 1990, that a barge with a load of of kerosene struck a reef in the Hudson River, spilling of fuel. Immediately, Hess assumed responsibility for the cleanup; the Coast Guard worked alongside the Red Star company to clean and to contain the spill to one area."
"crucial piece of evidence as to the cause of the explosion and spill. In a 23 December letter, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board asked the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (formerly called the Minerals Management Service) to discontinue its investigation of the blowout preventer, which began 16 November at a NASA facility near New Orleans, until dealing with conflicts of interest. The board said Transocean and Cameron International, maker of the blowout preventer, had more access than the board did, and that Det Norske Veritas, which led the testing, should be removed or monitored more closely. Transocean"
"rams failed to fully close and seal due to a portion of drill pipe buckling between the shearing blocks. The US government report issued in September 2011 stated that BP is ultimately responsible for the spill, and that Halliburton and Transocean share some of the blame. The report states that the main cause was the defective cement job, and Halliburton, BP and Transocean were, in different ways, responsible for the accident. The report stated that, although the events leading to the sinking of Deepwater Horizon were set into motion by the failure to prevent a well blowout, the investigation revealed"
"by Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, and 10% by MOEX Offshore 2007, a unit of Mitsui. At approximately , on 20 April 2010, high-pressure methane gas from the well expanded into the drilling riser and rose into the drilling rig, where it ignited and exploded, engulfing the platform. At the time, 126 crew members were on board: seven BP employees, 79 of Transocean, and employees of various other companies. Eleven missing workers were never found despite a three-day U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) search operation and are believed to have died in the explosion. Ninety-four crew members were rescued by lifeboat or helicopter,"
"be expected to be fatal or at least life-shortening and another study found that cardiotoxicity might have been widespread in animal life exposed to the spill. Numerous investigations explored the causes of the explosion and record-setting spill. The U.S. government September 2011 report pointed to defective cement on the well, faulting mostly BP, but also rig operator Transocean and contractor Halliburton. Earlier in 2011, a White House commission likewise blamed BP and its partners for a series of cost-cutting decisions and an inadequate safety system, but also concluded that the spill resulted from ""systemic"" root causes and ""absent significant reform"
"majority of the shipping industry. Vessel owners objected that additional oil spill penalties imposed by the states are free from OPA limitations of the Limitation of Liability Act of 1851. Ultimately, the threat of unlimited liability under the OPA and other state statutes has led countless oil shipping companies to reduce oil trade to and from the ports of the United States. However, there were positive reactions from the oil industries despite the newly enforced codes and regulations. In 1990, the oil industry united to form the Marine Spill Response Corporation (MRSC), a non-profit corporation whose expenses would be compensated"
"ships), International treaties such as the International Convention on Civil Liability for Oil Pollution Damage and International Convention on Civil Liability for Bunker Oil Pollution Damage which have a similar intention as the Act, have not been signed by the United States, as it was deemed the Oil Pollution Act provided sufficient coverage. Oil Pollution Act of 1990 The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA) (101 H.R.1465, P.L. 101-380) was passed by the 101st United States Congress and signed by President George H. W. Bush. It works to avoid oil spills from vessels and facilities by enforcing removal of spilled"
"efforts after the Cosco Busan spilled 58,000 gallons of bunker oil into the San Francisco Bay on November 7, 2007. It deployed approximately 1,500 workers to clean up that spill. As of 2007, O'Brien's Response Management represents approximately 400 shipping companies, 5,000 ships, and 200 oil and gas companies, and has worked on over 400 spills in the past three years. The O'Brien's Group O'Brien's Response Management is the largest oil spill management company in the United States Company founder Jim O'Brien fought his first oil spill in 1969 as an officer with the United States Coast Guard. In 1983"
"but there is a board of directors made up of representatives of Shoreline Mutual's members who provide executive oversight. These include Gregory McGrath who is CFO at Omega Navigation Enterprises, and Carolyn Webster who is Risk Manager at Disney Cruise Line. Edward Ross, who is the Insurance Coordinator at Zodiac Maritime Agencies Ltd, is the acting chairman of the Shoreline Board of Directors. The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 was introduced in the wake of the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989. Under this legislation every ship entering United States waters has to prove evidence of its ability to pay"
"to make up the economic losses from that time out of work. Over a year after the spill, the owners of the tug and barge were given criminal charges because the Oil Pollution act of 1990 had made it illegal to negligently discharge harmful quantities of oil into the United States' navigable waters. The owners paid a total of $9.5 million in criminal and other costs. As a result of the severe weather during the time of the spill, the oil spread quickly to the deeper levels of water, making clean up a more difficult and the skimming method less"
"responsible for the oil spill. His ruling stated that BP ""employees took risks that led to the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history,” that the company was “reckless,” and determined that several crucial BP decisions were “primarily driven by a desire to save time and money, rather than ensuring that the well was secure.” The ruling means that BP, which had already spent more than $28 billion on cleanup costs and damage claims, may be liable for another $18 billion in damages, four times the Clean Water Act maximum penalties and many times more than the $3.5 billion BP had"
"the largest fine levied on an oil company after a fuel spill. Ashland was charged with two misdemeanors: one for violating the Clean Water Act and another for violating the Federal Refuse Act. Ashland paid about $18 million in cleanup fees and civil lawsuits from those distressed by the experience. Ashland oil spill The Ashland oil spill was an oil spill that occurred on January 2, 1988 into the Monongahela River near the town of Jefferson Hills, Pennsylvania, approximately 20 miles upstream from the city of Pittsburgh. Ashland Oil Company Inc. (currently known as Ashland Inc.) owned a facility near"