OIL RIG EXPLOSIONS

Executives from BP, TransOcean and Halliburton convened on Capitol Hill yesterday for Senate hearings into the disastrous Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Then, they spent much of the day trying to pin blame for the catastrophe on each other.
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Executives from BP America and TransOcean Ltd. will appear before two Senate panels today to testify about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. According to a CNN report, members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee want to know about the precautions that were taken prior to the April 20 blast that spawned the oil spill and killed 11 crew members on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig.
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The Deepwater Horizon oil rig that exploded last week was not outfitted with a safety device that might have prevented the massive oil spill now nearing the U.S. Gulf Coast. The device, known as an acoustic switch, is a last-resort protection against underwater spills, and is required by regulators in Norway and Brazil. Unfortunately, the U.S. has no such regulation for oil wells operating off of its shores.
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Little more than a week after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion that likely killed 11 men and caused a massive oil spill, it is still not known what caused the disaster. Speculation is that the explosion was the result of a blowout. Such an event occurs when a combination of well control systems – primarily drilling mud hydrostatics and blow-out preventers (BOPs) – fail.
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The Louisiana Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion has produced a major oil spill, and has become a serious environmental catastrophe. Our oil rig explosion lawyers are aggressively investigating this disaster, and are planning to file lawsuits on behalf of anyone who suffered physical, economic or property damages because of this explosion and resulting oil spill. We are committed to holding BP PLC and Transocean LTD accountable for the damage caused by this tragic incident.

Our oil rig explosion lawyers are offering free case evaluations to individuals and businesses who suffered property damage, business interruption or any type of economic loss / hardship caused by the Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster. The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 allows individuals and entities impacted by oil spills to collect compensation for property loss, loss of income and other damages caused by such incidents. Parties deemed responsible for an oil spill are liable for such losses.

The Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion now ranks among the worst offshore drilling disasters in recent U.S. history. After burning for more than 36 hours, the offshore rig sunk into the Gulf of Mexico. At the time of its collapse, 13,000 gallons of crude oil per hour was spilling into the sea. By the following day, an oil spill measuring 100 square miles was drifting northeast toward shore.

At the same time, hope was fading that 11 men missing since the explosion would be found alive. If the missing men are not found alive, the Deepwater Horizon disaster would go down as the deadliest U.S. offshore rig explosion since 1968.

The oil spill from the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion is raising serious environmental concerns, and could threaten the fragile ecosystem of the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts. Those areas serve as nurseries for fish and shrimp and habitat for birds.

Oil spills are one of the worst environmental disasters, causing both short-term and long-term pollutant side effects. Consequences of oil spills include dead and dying wildlife, tarred beaches, damaged fisheries and contaminated water supplies. If oil waste reaches the shoreline or coast, it interacts with sediments such as beach sand and gravel, rocks and boulders, vegetation, and terrestrial habitats of both wildlife and humans, causing erosion as well as contamination.

Oil spills present the potential for enormous harm to deep ocean and coastal fishing and fisheries. The immediate effects of toxic and smothering oil waste may be mass mortality and contamination of fish and other food species, but long-term ecological effects may be worse. Oil waste poisons the sensitive marine and coastal organic substrate, interrupting the food chain on which fish and sea creatures depend, and on which their reproductive success is based. Commercial fishing enterprises may be affected permanently.