Chronicle of a Death Forestalled: the Gulf of Mexico oil spill that didn’t happen

Southern Fried Scientist -

A giant in the oil industry sets out to drill what is, at the time, the deepest oil well in the world, a staggering 32,000 feet below the sea bed. The oil field, just 28 miles from the Louisiana coast, is estimated to contain up to a billion barrels of oil. The success of this well could launch a new era of offshore drilling and revolutionize an industry.

And then, after 18 months and $180 million dollars, just 2,000 feet from their target, ExxonMobil halts their drill, declares Blackbeard West unsafe, and walks away.

Barely 5 years later, a similar well, deep and deeply unsafe, would suffer a catastrophic blowout, pumping millions of barrels of crude into the Gulf of Mexico. The resulting investigation revealed a history of unacceptable risk and a blasé attitude towards safety on the part of BP. While the BP blowout at the Macondo well was a disaster on a global scale, Blackbeard West was a disaster deferred.

How could these two incidents, both created by nearly the same conditions, have had such dramatically different consequences? What can we learn about the culture of oil exploration and the true cost of a crude economy from Blackbeard West?

By all accounts, Blackbeard West had the potential to be one of the richest oil prospects in the Gulf. Initial estimates suggested that the well contained at least 500 million barrels of oil and possibly upwards of several billion barrels. For comparison, the Macondo prospect, which was the site of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, held only about 50 million barrels.

The oil at Blackbeard West would not be easy to access. Though the water depth at the site was only 70 feet below sea level, the oil was locked away at an unimaginable 32,000 feet below the seabed. Over the next 18 months, ExxonMobil drilled an impressive 30,000 feet deep, investing over $180 million into the project. Were it to reach completion, it would have been the deepest oil well ever drilled.

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