oil rig mud pump explosion made in china

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While drilling a coal seam gas well at 28 m the power end covers of the mud pump exploded. Some side cover fragments were ejected up to 8 m away from the mud pump, while other fragments from the drive side of the mud pump damaged the drive belts and cage. The top cover was flipped off, coming to rest upside down at the rear of the mud pump.

Fires were ignited both inside the mud pump and on the exhaust system of the mud pump engine and were extinguished using hand held fire extinguishers.

The internal oil lubrication hose became disconnected from its fitting causing the lubrication pump to dump oil into the sump (Figure 2). Internal piping then failed to lubricate and cool the pump bearings, pistons and crossheads.

Insufficient lubrication within the power end of the mud pump created hot spots (Figure 3) and oil vapour resulting in a low pressure/high volume oil vapour explosion.

Four months prior to the incident problems were experienced with fluctuating oil pressure in the mud pump. Upon inspection it was found that the oil lubrication hose had disconnected from its fitting. This hose was reconnected and tightened by the Rig Manager.

A blowout is the uncontrolled release of crude oil and/or natural gas from an oil well or gas well after pressure control systems have failed.blowout preventers intended to prevent such an occurrence. An accidental spark during a blowout can lead to a catastrophic oil or gas fire.

Prior to the advent of pressure control equipment in the 1920s, the uncontrolled release of oil and gas from a well while drilling was common and was known as an oil gusher, gusher or wild well.

Gushers were an icon of oil exploration during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. During that era, the simple drilling techniques, such as cable-tool drilling, and the lack of blowout preventers meant that drillers could not control high-pressure reservoirs. When these high-pressure zones were breached, the oil or natural gas would travel up the well at a high rate, forcing out the drill string and creating a gusher. A well which began as a gusher was said to have "blown in": for instance, the Lakeview Gusher blew in in 1910. These uncapped wells could produce large amounts of oil, often shooting 200 feet (61 m) or higher into the air.gas gusher.

Despite being symbols of new-found wealth, gushers were dangerous and wasteful. They killed workmen involved in drilling, destroyed equipment, and coated the landscape with thousands of barrels of oil; additionally, the explosive concussion released by the well when it pierces an oil/gas reservoir has been responsible for a number of oilmen losing their hearing entirely; standing too near to the drilling rig at the moment it drills into the oil reservoir is extremely hazardous. The impact on wildlife is very hard to quantify, but can only be estimated to be mild in the most optimistic models—realistically, the ecological impact is estimated by scientists across the ideological spectrum to be severe, profound, and lasting.

With a roar like a hundred express trains racing across the countryside, the well blew out, spewing oil in all directions. The derrick simply evaporated. Casings wilted like lettuce out of water, as heavy machinery writhed and twisted into grotesque shapes in the blazing inferno.

A blowout in 1815 resulted from an attempt to drill for salt rather than for oil. Joseph Eichar and his team were digging west of the town of Wooster, Ohio, US along Killbuck Creek, when they struck oil. In a written retelling by Eichar"s daughter, Eleanor, the strike produced "a spontaneous outburst, which shot up high as the tops of the highest trees!"

Oil drillers struck a number of gushers near Oil City, Pennsylvania, US in 1861. The most famous was the Little & Merrick well, which began gushing oil on 17 April 1861. The spectacle of the fountain of oil flowing out at about 3,000 barrels (480 m3) per day had drawn about 150 spectators by the time an hour later when the oil gusher burst into flames, raining fire down on the oil-soaked onlookers. Thirty people died. Other early gushers in northwest Pennsylvania were the Phillips #2 (4,000 barrels (640 m3) per day) in September 1861, and the Woodford well (3,000 barrels (480 m3) per day) in December 1861.

The Shaw Gusher in Oil Springs, Ontario, was Canada"s first oil gusher. On January 16, 1862, it shot oil from over 60 metres (200 ft) below ground to above the treetops at a rate of 3,000 barrels (480 m3) per day, triggering the oil boom in Lambton County.

Lucas Gusher at Spindletop in Beaumont, Texas, US in 1901 flowed at 100,000 barrels (16,000 m3) per day at its peak, but soon slowed and was capped within nine days. The well tripled U.S. oil production overnight and marked the start of the Texas oil industry.

Midway-Sunset Oil Field in Kern County, California, US of 1910 is believed to be the largest-ever U.S. gusher. At its peak, more than 100,000 barrels (16,000 m3) of oil per day flowed out, reaching as high as 200 feet (61 m) in the air. It remained uncapped for 18 months, spilling over 9 million barrels (1,400,000 m3) of oil, less than half of which was recovered.

A short-lived gusher at Alamitos #1 in Signal Hill, California, US in 1921 marked the discovery of the Long Beach Oil Field, one of the most productive oil fields in the world.

The Yates #30-A in Pecos County, Texas, US gushing 80 feet through the fifteen-inch casing, produced a world record 204,682 barrels of oil a day from a depth of 1,070 feet on 23 September 1929.

The largest known "wildcat" oil gusher blew near Qom, Iran, on 26 August 1956. The uncontrolled oil gushed to a height of 52 m (171 ft), at a rate of 120,000 barrels (19,000 m3) per day. The gusher was closed after 90 days" work by Bagher Mostofi and Myron Kinley (USA).

One of the most troublesome gushers happened on 23 June 1985, at well #37 at the Tengiz field in Atyrau, Kazakh SSR, Soviet Union, where the 4,209-metre deep well blew out and the 200-metre high gusher self-ignited two days later. Oil pressure up to 800 atm and high hydrogen sulfide content had led to the gusher being capped only on 27 July 1986. The total volume of erupted material measured at 4.3 million metric tons of oil and 1.7 billion m³ of natural gas, and the burning gusher resulted in 890 tons of various mercaptans and more than 900,000 tons of soot released into the atmosphere.

underwater blowout in U.S. history occurred on 20 April 2010, in the Gulf of Mexico at the Macondo Prospect oil field. The blowout caused the explosion of the Transocean and under lease to BP at the time of the blowout. While the exact volume of oil spilled is unknown, as of June 3, 2010United States Geological Survey Flow Rate Technical Group has placed the estimate at between 35,000 to 60,000 barrels (5,600 to 9,500 m3) of crude oil per day.

Petroleum or crude oil is a naturally occurring, flammable liquid consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights, and other organic compounds, found in geologic formations beneath the Earth"s surface. Because most hydrocarbons are lighter than rock or water, they often migrate upward and occasionally laterally through adjacent rock layers until either reaching the surface or becoming trapped within porous rocks (known as reservoirs) by impermeable rocks above. When hydrocarbons are concentrated in a trap, an oil field forms, from which the liquid can be extracted by drilling and pumping. The downhole pressure in the rock structures changes depending upon the depth and the characteristics of the source rock.Natural gas (mostly methane) may be present also, usually above the oil within the reservoir, but sometimes dissolved in the oil at reservoir pressure and temperature. Dissolved gas typically comes out of solution as free gas as the pressure is reduced either under controlled production operations or in a kick, or in an uncontrolled blowout. The hydrocarbon in some reservoirs may be essentially all natural gas.

The downhole fluid pressures are controlled in modern wells through the balancing of the hydrostatic pressure provided by the mud column. Should the balance of the drilling mud pressure be incorrect (i.e., the mud pressure gradient is less than the formation pore pressure gradient), then formation fluids (oil, natural gas, and/or water) can begin to flow into the wellbore and up the annulus (the space between the outside of the drill string and the wall of the open hole or the inside of the casing), and/or inside the drill pipe. This is commonly called a kick. Ideally, mechanical barriers such as blowout preventers (BOPs) can be closed to isolate the well while the hydrostatic balance is regained through circulation of fluids in the well. But if the well is not shut in (common term for the closing of the blow-out preventer), a kick can quickly escalate into a blowout when the formation fluids reach the surface, especially when the influx contains gas that expands rapidly with the reduced pressure as it flows up the wellbore, further decreasing the effective weight of the fluid.

The primary means of detecting a kick while drilling is a relative change in the circulation rate back up to the surface into the mud pits. The drilling crew or mud engineer keeps track of the level in the mud pits and closely monitors the rate of mud returns versus the rate that is being pumped down the drill pipe. Upon encountering a zone of higher pressure than is being exerted by the hydrostatic head of the drilling mud (including the small additional frictional head while circulating) at the bit, an increase in mud return rate would be noticed as the formation fluid influx blends in with the circulating drilling mud. Conversely, if the rate of returns is slower than expected, it means that a certain amount of the mud is being lost to a thief zone somewhere below the last casing shoe. This does not necessarily result in a kick (and may never become one); however, a drop in the mud level might allow influx of formation fluids from other zones if the hydrostatic head is reduced to less than that of a full column of mud.

This effect will be minor if the influx fluid is mainly salt water. And with an oil-based drilling fluid it can be masked in the early stages of controlling a kick because gas influx may dissolve into the oil under pressure at depth, only to come out of solution and expand rather rapidly as the influx nears the surface. Once all the contaminant has been circulated out, the shut-in casing pressure should have reached zero.

Blowouts can eject the drill string out of the well, and the force of the escaping fluid can be strong enough to damage the drilling rig. In addition to oil, the output of a well blowout might include natural gas, water, drilling fluid, mud, sand, rocks, and other substances.

Blowouts will often be ignited from sparks from rocks being ejected, or simply from heat generated by friction. A well control company then will need to extinguish the well fire or cap the well, and replace the casing head and other surface equipment. If the flowing gas contains poisonous hydrogen sulfide, the oil operator might decide to ignite the stream to convert this to less hazardous substances.

Even with blowout prevention equipment and processes in place, operators must be prepared to respond to a blowout should one occur. Before drilling a well, a detailed well construction design plan, an Oil Spill Response Plan as well as a Well Containment Plan must be submitted, reviewed and approved by BSEE and is contingent upon access to adequate well containment resources in accordance to NTL 2010-N10.

Myron M. Kinley was a pioneer in fighting oil well fires and blowouts. He developed many patents and designs for the tools and techniques of oil firefighting. His father, Karl T. Kinley, attempted to extinguish an oil well fire with the help of a massive explosion—a method still in common use for fighting oil fires. Myron and Karl Kinley first successfully used explosives to extinguish an oil well fire in 1913.

After the Macondo-1 blowout on the Deepwater Horizon, the offshore industry collaborated with government regulators to develop a framework to respond to future subsea incidents. As a result, all energy companies operating in the deep-water U.S. Gulf of Mexico must submit an OPA 90 required Oil Spill Response Plan with the addition of a Regional Containment Demonstration Plan prior to any drilling activity.

In order to regain control of a subsea well, the Responsible Party would first secure the safety of all personnel on board the rig and then begin a detailed evaluation of the incident site. Remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROVs) would be dispatched to inspect the condition of the wellhead, Blowout Preventer (BOP) and other subsea well equipment. The debris removal process would begin immediately to provide clear access for a capping stack.

The Responsible Party works in collaboration with BSEE and the United States Coast Guard to oversee response efforts, including source control, recovering discharged oil and mitigating environmental impact.

On Sep. 30, 1966, the Soviet Union experienced blowouts on five natural gas wells in Urta-Bulak, an area about 80 kilometers from Bukhara, Uzbekistan. It was claimed in Komsomoloskaya Pravda that after years of burning uncontrollably they were able to stop them entirely.physics package into a 6-kilometre (20,000 ft) borehole drilled 25 to 50 metres (82 to 164 ft) away from the original (rapidly leaking) well. A nuclear explosive was deemed necessary because conventional explosives both lacked the necessary power and would also require a great deal more space underground. When the device was detonated, it crushed the original pipe that was carrying the gas from the deep reservoir to the surface and vitrified the surrounding rock. This caused the leak and fire at the surface to cease within approximately one minute of the explosion, and proved to be a permanent solution. An attempt on a similar well was not as successful. Other tests were for such experiments as oil extraction enhancement (Stavropol, 1969) and the creation of gas storage reservoirs (Orenburg, 1970).

Walsh, Bryan (2010-05-19). "Gulf Oil Spill: Scientists Escalate Environmental Warnings". Time. Archived from the original on June 29, 2010. Retrieved June 30, 2010.

Douglass, Ben (1878). "Chapter XVI". History of Wayne County, Ohio, from the Days of the First Settlers to the Present Time. Indianapolis, Ind.: Robert Douglass, publisher. pp. 233–235. OCLC 4721800. Retrieved 2013-07-16. One of the greatest obstacles they met with when boring was the striking a strong vein of oil, a spontaneous outburst, which shot up high as the tops of the highest trees!

Rundell, Walter.p (1982). Oil in West Texas and New Mexico : a pictorial history of the Permian Basin (1st ed.). College Station: Published for the Permian Basin Petroleum Museum Library, and Hall of Fame, Midland, Texas, by Texas A & M University Press. p. 89. ISBN 0-89096-125-5. OCLC 8110608.

Whipple, Tom (2005-03-15). "Full steam ahead for BC offshore oil drilling". Energybulletin.net. Archived from the original on 2008-01-20. Retrieved 2016-01-30.

"East Texas Oil Museum at Kilgore College – History". Easttexasoilmuseum.com. 1930-10-03. Archived from the original on 2016-02-08. Retrieved 2016-01-30.

Norris Mcwhirter; Donald McFarlan (1989). the Guinness Book of Records 1990. Guinness Publishing Ltd. ISBN 978-0-85112-341-7. Archived from the original on 2018-05-03.

Christopher Pala (2001-10-23). "Kazakhstan Field"s Riches Come With a Price". Vol. 82, no. 715. The St. Petersburg Times. Archived from the original on 2013-12-28. Retrieved 2009-10-12.

"NTL No. 2010-N10". BSEE.gov. US Department of the Interior Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement. Archived from the original on 2015-09-30.

Madrid, Mauricio; Matson, Anthony (2014). "How Offshore Capping Stacks Work" (PDF). Society of Petroleum Engineers: The Way Ahead. 10 (1). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2015-11-29.

CineGraphic (4 July 2009). "An Atomic Bomb will stop the Gulf Oil Leak, LOOK!". Archived from the original on 7 November 2017. Retrieved 3 May 2018 – via YouTube.

Oil and gas well drilling and servicing activities involve many different types of equipment and materials. Recognizing and controlling hazards is critical to preventing injuries and deaths. Several of these hazards are highlighted below. See Standards and Enforcement for more information on evaluation and control requirements.

Workers and equipment are required to be transported to and from well sites. Wells are often located in remote areas, and require traveling long distances to get to the sites. Highway vehicle crashes are the leading cause of oil and gas extraction worker fatalities. Roughly 4 of every 10 workers killed on the job in this industry are killed as a result of a highway vehicle incident (Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries). The following OSHA and NIOSH documents provide guidance on recognizing and controlling vehicle-related hazards:

Oil and Gas Well Drilling and Servicing eTool: Transportation Module. Reviews potential hazards and possible solutions for transporting personnel and equipment, vehicle operation at the well site, and all-terrain vehicles and utility task vehicles.

Three of every five on-site fatalities in the oil and gas extraction industry are the result of struck-by/caught -in/caught-between hazards (OSHA IMIS Database). Workers might be exposed to struck-by/caught-in/caught-between hazards from multiple sources, including moving vehicles or equipment, falling equipment, and high-pressure lines. The following OSHA and NIOSH documents provide guidance on recognizing and controlling these hazards:

Workers in the oil and gas industries face the risk of fire and explosion due to ignition of flammable vapors or gases. Flammable gases, such as well gases, vapors, and hydrogen sulfide, can be released from wells, trucks, production equipment or surface equipment such as tanks and shale shakers. Ignition sources can include static, electrical energy sources, open flames, lightning, cigarettes, cutting and welding tools, hot surfaces, and frictional heat. The following OSHA and NIOSH documents provide guidance on recognizing and controlling these hazards:

Prevention of Fatalities from Ignition of Vapors by Mobile Engines and Auxiliary Motors. OSHA and National STEPS Network and NIOSH Alliance, (June 2017). A hazard alert on how to prevent fires and explosions caused by ignition of vapors by motorized equipment during drilling, servicing, and production operations.

Hot Work, Fire, and Explosive Hazards. OSHA"s Oil and Gas Drilling and Servicing eTool. Covers hazards associated with performing hot work at oil and gas well sites.

Potential Flammability Hazard Associated with Bulk Transportation of Oilfield Exploration and Production (E&P) Waste Liquids. OSHA Safety and Health Information Bulletin, (March 24, 2008). Alerts oil and gas facilities about the flammability of oilfield waste liquids.

Hot Work in Oilfields. OSHA and National STEPS Network and NIOSH Alliance, (September 2016). A hazard alert on how to prevent fatalities associated with hot work on oilfield tanks, tankers and related equipment.

Walking and Working Surfaces and Fall Protection. OSHA"s Harwood Grant Training Materials. Covers slips, trips, and fall hazards in the oil and gas industry and associated OSHA standards.

Occupational Fatalities Resulting from Falls in the Oil and Gas Extraction Industry, United States, 2005–2014. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), (April 28, 2017).

Workers are often required to enter confined spaces such as petroleum and other storage tanks, mud pits, reserve pits and other excavated areas, sand storage containers, and other confined spaces around a wellhead. Safety hazards associated with confined space include ignition of flammable vapors or gases. Health hazards include asphyxiation and exposure to hazardous chemicals. Confined spaces that contain or have the potential to contain a serious atmospheric hazard must be classified as permit-required confined spaces, tested prior to entry, and continuously monitored. The following OSHA and NIOSH documents provide guidance on recognizing and controlling this hazard:

Oil and gas workers might be exposed to ergonomics-related injury risks, such as lifting heavy items, bending, reaching overhead, pushing and pulling heavy loads, working in awkward body postures, and performing the same or similar tasks repetitively. Risk factors and the resulting injuries can be minimized or, in many cases, eliminated through interventions such as pre-task planning, use of the right tools, proper placement of materials, education of workers about the risk, and early recognition and reporting of injury signs and symptoms. The following OSHA and NIOSH documents provide guidance on recognizing and controlling these hazards:

Strains and Sprains. OSHA"s Oil and Gas Well Drilling and Servicing eTool. Lists solutions for preventing strains and sprains in the oil and gas industry.

Lockout/Tagout. OSHA"s Harwood Grant Training Materials. Covers control of hazardous energy and lockout/tagout procedures in the oil and gas industry.

Oil and gas extraction workers may be exposed to a wide variety of rotating wellhead equipment, including top drives and Kelly drives, drawworks, pumps, compressors, catheads, hoist blocks, belt wheels, and conveyors, and might be injured if they are struck by or caught between unguarded machines. The following OSHA and NIOSH documents provide guidance on recognizing and controlling these hazards:

Barrier Guard for Drawworks Drum at Oil Drilling Sites. OSHA Hazard Information Bulletin, (July 13, 1995). Highlights the need for barrier guards for drawworks drums to prevent caught-between hazards at oil drilling sites.

Machine Guarding. OSHA"s Harwood Grant Training Materials. Covers principles of machine guarding in the oil and gas industry and associated OSHA standards.

For process-specific and task-specific hazards and controls, see OSHA"s Oil and Gas Well Drilling and Servicing eTool. The eTool identifies common hazards and possible solutions to reduce incidents that could lead to injuries or deaths. Each drilling and servicing company should have its own safety program:

Know the hazards. Evaluate the hazards at the worksite. Many companies within the oil and gas industry use the Job Safety Analysis Process (also referred to as a JSA, Job Hazard Analysis, or JHA) to identify hazards and find solutions.

Deep water horizon delivers what it was, the story based on the true events of deepwater horizon oil spill that exploded, well at first 30 mins was just getting into the story and building the characters i was waiting to reach the point when will the things were going to start, after all it got me into its atmosphere and catching up with the scenes, amazing cinematography with all those explosion and fires burning behind the scenes, discovering the life of those workers kinda gets hard to watch how people are dealing with those things, seeing people between life hope and survival, at the ending it was sad to see all those workers had lost their lifes, at last its well crafted, highly recommended if you like disaster types, 7.5/10⭐

Today, petroleum is found in vast underground reservoirs where ancient seas were located. Petroleum reservoirs can be found beneath land or the ocean floor. Their crude oil is extracted with giant drilling machines.

Crude oil is usually black or dark brown, but can also be yellowish, reddish, tan, or even greenish. Variations in color indicate the distinct chemical compositions of different supplies of crude oil. Petroleum that has few metals or sulfur, for instance, tends to be lighter (sometimes nearly clear).

Petroleum is used to make gasoline, an important product in our everyday lives. It is also processed and part of thousands of different items, including tires, refrigerators, life jackets, and anesthetics.

Oil supplies will run out. Eventually, the world will reach “peak oil,” or its highest production level. Some experts predict peak oil could come as soon as 2050. Finding alternatives to petroleum is crucial to global energy use, and is the focus of many industries.

Sedimentary basins, where ancient seabeds used to lie, are key sources of petroleum. In Africa, the Niger Delta sedimentary basin covers land in Nigeria, Cameroon, and Equatorial Guinea. More than 500 oil deposits have been discovered in the massive Niger Delta basin, and they comprise one of the most productive oil fields in Africa.

The gasoline we use to fuel our cars, the synthetic fabrics of our backpacks and shoes, and the thousands of different useful products made from petroleum come in forms that are consistent and reliable. However, the crude oil from which these items are produced is neither consistent nor uniform.

Crude oil is composed of hydrocarbons, which are mainly hydrogen (about 13 percent by weight) and carbon (about 85 percent). Other elements such as nitrogen (about 0.5 percent), sulfur (0.5 percent), oxygen (1 percent), and metals such as iron, nickel, and copper (less than 0.1 percent) can also be mixed in with the hydrocarbons in small amounts.

The way molecules are organized in the hydrocarbon is a result of the original composition of the algae, plants, or plankton from millions of years ago. The amount of heat and pressure the plants were exposed to also contributes to variations that are found in hydrocarbons and crude oil.

Due to this variation, crude oil that is pumped from the ground can consist of hundreds of different petroleum compounds. Light oils can contain up to 97 percent hydrocarbons, while heavier oils and bitumens might contain only 50 percent hydrocarbons and larger quantities of other elements. It is almost always necessary to refine crude oil in order to make useful products.

Oil is classified according to three main categories: the geographic location where it was drilled, its sulfur content, and its API gravity (a measure of density).

Oil is drilled all over the world. However, there are three primary sources of crude oil that set reference points for ranking and pricing other oil supplies: Brent Crude, West Texas Intermediate, and Dubai and Oman.

Brent Crude is a mixture that comes from 15 different oil fields between Scotland and Norway in the North Sea. These fields supply oil to most of Europe.

West Texas Intermediate (WTI) is a lighter oil that is produced mostly in the U.S. state of Texas. It is “sweet” and “light”—considered very high quality. WTI supplies much of North America with oil.

Dubai crude, also known as Fateh or Dubai-Oman crude, is a light, sour oil that is produced in Dubai, part of the United Arab Emirates. The nearby country of Oman has recently begun producing oil. Dubai and Oman crudes are used as a reference point for pricing Persian Gulf oils that are mostly exported to Asia.

The OPEC Reference Basket is another important oil source. OPEC is the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. The OPEC Reference Basket is the average price of petroleum from OPEC’s 12 member countries: Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela.

Sulfur is considered an “impurity” in petroleum. Sulfur in crude oil can corrode metal in the refining process and contribute to air pollution. Petroleum with more than 0.5 percent sulfur is called “sour,” while petroleum with less than 0.5 percent sulfur is “sweet.”

The American Petroleum Institute (API) is a trade association for businesses in the oil and natural gas industries. The API has established accepted systems of standards for a variety of oil- and gas-related products, such as gauges, pumps, and drilling machinery. The API has also established several units of measurement. The “API unit,” for instance, measures gamma radiation in a borehole (a shaft drilled into the ground).

Light oils are preferred because they have a higher yield of hydrocarbons. Heavier oils have greater concentrations of metals and sulfur, and require more refining.

Petroleum can be contained by structural traps, which are formed when massive layers of rock are bent or faulted (broken) from Earth’s shifting landmasses. Oil can also be contained by stratigraphic traps. Different strata, or layers of rock, can have different amounts of porosity. Crude oil migrates easily through a layer of sandstone, for instance, but would be trapped beneath a layer of shale.

Geologists, chemists, and engineers look for geological structures that typically trap petroleum. They use a process called “seismic reflection” to locate underground rock structures that might have trapped crude oil. During the process, a small explosion is set off. Sound waves travel underground, bounce off of the different types of rock, and return to the surface. Sensors on the ground interpret the returning sound waves to determine the underground geological layout and possibility of a petroleum reservoir.

The amount of petroleum in a reservoir is measured in barrels or tons. An oil barrel is about 42 gallons. This measurement is usually used by oil producers in the United States. Oil producers in Europe and Asia tend to measure in metric tons. There are about six to eight barrels of oil in a metric ton. The conversion is imprecise because different varieties of oil weigh different amounts, depending on the amount of impurities.

Crude oil is frequently found in reservoirs along with natural gas. In the past, natural gas was either burned or allowed to escape into the atmosphere. Now, technology has been developed to capture the natural gas and either reinject it into the well or compress it into liquid natural gas (LNG). LNG is easily transportable and has versatile uses.

In some places, petroleum bubbles to the surface of Earth. In parts of Saudi Arabia and Iraq, for instance, porous rock allows oil to seep to the surface in small ponds. However, most oil is trapped in underground oil reservoirs.

The total amount of petroleum in a reservoir is called oil-in-place. Many petroleum liquids that make up a reservoir’s oil-in-place are unable to be extracted. These petroleum liquids may be too difficult, dangerous, or expensive to drill.

The part of a reservoir’s oil-in-place that can be extracted and refined is that reservoir’s oil reserves. The decision to invest in complex drilling operations is often made based on a site’s proven oil reserves.

Drilling in an area where oil reserves have already been found is called developmental drilling. Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, United States, has the largest oil reserves in the United States. Developmental drilling in Prudhoe Bay includes new wells and expanding extraction technology.

Drilling where there are no known reserves is called exploratory drilling. Exploratory, also called “wildcat” drilling, is a risky business with a very high failure rate. However, the potential rewards of striking oil tempt many “wildcatters” to attempt exploratory drilling. “Diamond” Glenn McCarthy, for example, is known as the “King of the Wildcatters” because of his success in discovering the massive oil reserves near Houston, Texas, United States. McCarthy struck oil 38 times in the 1930s, earning millions of dollars.

Directional drilling involves drilling vertically to a known source of oil, then veering the drill bit at an angle to access additional resources. Accusations of directional drilling led to the first Gulf War in 1991. Iraq accused Kuwait of using directional drilling techniques to extract oil from Iraqi oil reservoirs near the Kuwaiti border. Iraq subsequently invaded Kuwait, an act which drew international attention and intervention. After the war, the border between Iraq and Kuwait was redrawn, with the reservoirs now belonging to Kuwait.

Most modern wells use an air rotary drilling rig, which can operate 24 hours a day. In this process, engines power a drill bit. A drill bit is a cutting tool used to create a circular hole. The drill bits used in air rotary drilling rigs are hollow steel, with tungsten rods used to cut the rock. Petroleum drill bits can be 36 centimeters (14 inches) in diameter.

As the drill bit rotates and cuts through the earth, small pieces of rock are chipped off. A powerful flow of air is pumped down the center of the hollow drill, and comes out through the bottom of the drill bit. The air then rushes back toward the surface, carrying with it tiny chunks of rock. Geologists on site can study these pieces of pulverized rock to determine the different rock strata the drill encounters.

When the drill hits oil, some of the oil naturally rises from the ground, moving from an area of high pressure to low pressure. This immediate release of oil can be a “gusher,” shooting dozens of meters into the air, one of the most dramatic extraction activities. It is also one of the most dangerous, and a piece of equipment called a blowout preventer redistributes pressure to stop such a gusher.

Pumps are used to extract oil. Most oil rigs have two sets of pumps: mud pumps and extraction pumps. “Mud” is the drilling fluid used to create boreholes for extracting oil and natural gas. Mud pumps circulate drilling fluid.

The petroleum industry uses a wide variety of extraction pumps. Which pump to use depends on the geography, quality, and position of the oil reservoir. Submersible pumps, for example, are submerged directly into the fluid. A gas pump, also called a bubble pump, uses compressed air to force the petroleum to the surface or well.

One of the most familiar types of extraction pumps is the pumpjack, the upper part of a piston pump. Pumpjacks are nicknamed “thirsty birds” or “nodding donkeys” for their controlled, regular dipping motion. A crank moves the large, hammer-shaped pumpjack up and down. Far below the surface, the motion of the pumpjack moves a hollow piston up and down, constantly carrying petroleum back to the surface or well.

Even after pumping, the vast majority (up to 90 percent) of the oil can remain tightly trapped in the underground reservoir. Other methods are necessary to extract this petroleum, a process called secondary recovery. Vacuuming the extra oil out was a method used in the 1800s and early 20th century, but it captured only thinner oil components, and left behind great stores of heavy oil.

Water flooding was discovered by accident. In the 1870s, oil producers in Pennsylvania noticed that abandoned oil wells were accumulating rainwater and groundwater. The weight of the water in the boreholes forced oil out of the reservoirs and into nearby wells, increasing their production. Oil producers soon began intentionally flooding wells as a way to extract more oil.

The most prevalent secondary recovery method today is gas drive. During this process, a well is intentionally drilled deeper than the oil reservoir. The deeper well hits a natural gas reservoir, and the high-pressure gas rises, forcing the oil out of its reservoir.

The platform can either be tethered to the ocean floor and float, or can be a rigid structure that is fixed to the bottom of the ocean, sea, or lake with concrete or steel legs.

The Hibernia platform, 315 kilometers (196 miles) off Canada’s eastern shore in the North Atlantic, is one of the world’s largest oil platforms. More than 70 people work on the platform, in three-week shifts. The platform is 111 meters (364 feet) tall and is anchored to the ocean floor. About 450,000 tons of solid ballast were added to give it additional stability. The platform can store up to 1.3 million barrels of oil. In total, Hibernia weighs 1.2 million tons! However, the platform is still vulnerable to the crushing weight and strength of icebergs. Its edges are serrated and sharp to withstand the impact of sea ice or icebergs.

Oil platforms can cause enormous environmental disasters. Problems with the drilling equipment can cause the oil to explode out of the well and into the ocean. Repairing the well hundreds of meters below the ocean is extremely difficult, expensive, and slow. Millions of barrels of oil can spill into the ocean before the well is plugged.

When oil spills in the ocean, it floats on the water and wreaks havoc on the animal population. One of its most devastating effects is on birds. Oil destroys the waterproofing abilities of feathers, and birds are not insulated against the cold ocean water. Thousands can die of hypothermia. Fish and marine mammals, too, are threatened by oil spills. The dark shadows cast by oil spills can look like food. Oil can damage animals’ internal organs and be even more toxic to animals higher up in the food chain, a process called bioaccumulation.

A massive oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico, the Deepwater Horizon, exploded in 2010. This was the largest accidental marine oil spill in history. Eleven platform workers died, and more than four million barrels of oil gushed into the Gulf of Mexico. More than 40,000 barrels flowed into the ocean every day. Eight national parks were threatened, the economies of communities along the Gulf Coast were threatened as the tourism and fishing industries declined, and more than 6,000 animals died.

Offshore oil platforms can also act as artificial reefs. They provide a surface (substrate) for algae, coral, oysters, and barnacles. This artificial reef can attract fish and marine mammals, and create a thriving ecosystem.

Until the 1980s, oil platforms were deconstructed and removed from the oceans, and the metal was sold as scrap. In 1986, the National Marine Fisheries Association developed the Rigs-to-Reefs Program. Now, oil platforms are either toppled (by underwater explosion), removed and towed to a new location, or partially deconstructed. This allows the marine life to continue flourishing on the artificial reef that had provided habitats for decades.

The environmental impact of the Rigs-to-Reefs Program is still being studied. Oil platforms left underwater can pose dangers to ships and divers. Fishing boats have had their nets caught in the platforms, and there are concerns about safety regulations of the abandoned structures.

Environmentalists argue that oil companies should be held accountable to the commitment they originally agreed upon, which was to restore the seabed to its original condition. By leaving the platforms in the ocean, oil companies are excused from fulfilling this agreement, and there is concern this could set a precedent for other companies that want to dispose of their metal or machinery in the oceans.

Crude oil does not always have to be extracted through deep drilling. If it does not encounter rocky obstacles underground, it can seep all the way to the surface and bubble above ground. Bitumen is a form of petroleum that is black, extremely sticky, and sometimes rises to Earth’s surface.

In its natural state, bitumen is typically mixed with “oil sands” or “tar sands,” which makes it extremely difficult to extract and an unconventional source of oil. Only about 20 percent of the world’s reserves of bitumen are above ground and can be surface mined.

Unfortunately, because bitumen contains high amounts of sulfur and heavy metals, extracting and refining it is both costly and harmful to the environment. Producing bitumen into useful products releases 12 percent more carbon emissions than processing conventional oil.

Bitumen is about the consistency of cold molasses, and powerful hot steam has to be pumped into the well in order to melt the bitumen to extract it. Large quantities of water are then used to separate the bitumen from sand and clay. This process depletes nearby water supplies. Releasing the treated water back into the environment can further contaminate the remaining water supply.

Most of the world’s tar sands are in the eastern part of Alberta, Canada, in the Athabasca Oil Sands. Other major reserves are in the North Caspian Basin of Kazahkstan and Siberia, Russia.

The Athabasca Oil Sands are the fourth-largest reserves of oil in the world. Unfortunately, the bitumen reserves are located beneath part of the boreal forest, also called the taiga. This makes extraction both difficult and environmentally dangerous.

Surface mines are estimated to only take up 0.2 percent of Canada’s boreal forest. About 80 percent of Canada’s oil sands can be accessed through drilling, and 20 percent by surface mining.

Crude oil comes out of the ground with impurities, from sulfur to sand. These components have to be separated. This is done by heating the crude oil in a distillation tower that has trays and temperatures set at different levels. Oil’s hydrocarbons and metals have different boiling temperatures, and when the oil is heated, vapors from the different elements rise to different levels of the tower before condensing back into a liquid on the tiered trays.

The earliest known oil wells were drilled in China as early as 350 C.E. The wells were drilled almost 244 meters (800 feet) deep using strong bamboo bits. The oil was extracted and transported through bamboo pipelines. It was burned as a heating fuel and industrial component. Chinese engineers burned petroleum to evaporate brine and produce salt.

By the 7th century, Japanese engineers discovered that petroleum could be burned for light. Oil was later distilled into kerosene by a Persian alchemist in the 9th century. During the 1800s, petroleum slowly replaced whale oil in kerosene lamps, producing a radical decline in whale-hunting.

The modern oil industry was established in the 1850s. The first well was drilled in Poland in 1853, and the technology spread to other countries and was improved.

Petroleum production has rapidly increased. In 1859, the U.S. produced 2,000 barrels of oil. By 1906, that number was 126 million barrels per year. Today, the U.S. produces about 6.8 billion barrels of oil every year.

Although that seems like an impossibly high amount, the uses for petroleum have expanded to almost every area of life. Petroleum makes our lives easy in many ways. In many countries, including the U.S., the oil industry provides millions jobs, from surveyors and platform workers to geologists and engineers.

The United States consumes more oil than any other country. In 2011, the U.S. consumed more than 19 million barrels of oil every day. This is more than all of the oil consumed in Latin America (8.5 million) and Eastern Europe and Eurasia (5.5 million) combined.

Petroleum is an ingredient in thousands of everyday items. The gasoline that we depend on for transportation to school, work, or vacation comes from crude oil. A barrel of petroleum produces about 72 liters (19 gallons) of gasoline, and is used by people all over the world to power cars, boats, jets, and scooters.

Carbon is absorbed by plants and is part of every living organism as it moves through the food web. Carbon is naturally released through volcanoes, soil erosion, and evaporation. When carbon is released into the atmosphere, it absorbs and retains heat, regulating Earth’s temperature and making our planet habitable.

Not all of the carbon on Earth is involved in the carbon cycle above ground. Vast quantities of it are sequestered, or stored, underground, in the form of fossil fuels and in the soil. This sequestered carbon is necessary because it keeps Earth’s “carbon budget” balanced.

Oil is a major component of modern civilization. In developing countries, access to affordable energy can empower citizens and lead to higher quality of life. Petroleum provides transportation fuel, is a part of many chemicals and medicines, and is used to make crucial items such as heart valves, contact lenses, and bandages. Oil reserves attract outside investment and are important for improving countries’ overall economy.

However, a developing country’s access to oil can also affect the power relationship between a government and its people. In some countries, having access to oil can lead government to be less democratic—a situation nicknamed a “petro-dictatorship.” Russia, Nigeria, and Iran have all been accused of having petro-authoritarian regimes.

Oil is a nonrenewable resource, and the world’s oil reserves will not always be enough to provide for the world’s demand for petroleum. Peak oil is the point when the oil industry is extracting the maximum possible amount of petroleum. After peak oil, petroleum production will only decrease. After peak oil, there will be a decline in production and a rise in costs for the remaining supply.

Measuring peak oil uses the reserves-to-production ratio (RPR). This ratio compares the amount of proven oil reserves to the current extraction rate. The reserves-to-production ratio is expressed in years. The RPR is different for every oil rig and every oil-producing area. Oil-producing regions that are also major consumers of oil have a lower RPR than oil producers with low levels of consumption.

According to one industry report, the United States has an RPR of about nine years. The oil-rich, developing nation of Iran, which has a much lower consumption rate, has an RPR of more than 80 years.

It is impossible to know the precise year for peak oil. Some geologists argue it has already passed, while others maintain that extraction technology will delay peak oil for decades. Many geologists estimate that peak oil might be reached within 20 years.

Individuals, industries, and organizations are increasingly concerned with peak oil and environmental consequences of petroleum extraction. Alternatives to oil are being developed in some areas, and governments and organizations are encouraging citizens to change their habits so we do not rely so heavily on oil.

Bioasphalts, for example, are asphalts made from renewable sources such as molasses, sugar, corn, potato starch, or even byproducts of oil processes. Although they provide a nontoxic alternative to bitumen, bioasphalts require huge crop yields, which puts a strain on the agricultural industry.

Algae is also a potentially enormous source of energy. Algae oil (so-called “green crude”) can be converted into a biofuel. Algae grows extremely quickly and takes up a fraction of the space used by other biofuel feedstocks. About 38,849 square kilometers (15,000 square miles) of algae—less than half the size of the U.S. state of Maine—would provide enough biofuel to replace all of the U.S.’s petroleum needs. Algae absorbs pollution, releases oxygen, and does not require freshwater.

The country of Sweden has made it a priority to drastically reduce its dependence on oil and other fossil fuel energy by 2020. Experts in agriculture, science, industry, forestry, and energy have come together to develop sources of sustainable energy, including geothermal heat pumps, wind farms, wave and solar energy, and domestic biofuel for hybrid vehicles. Changes in society’s habits, such as increasing public transportation and video-conferencing for businesses, are also part of the plan to decrease oil use.

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On the morning of 21 April 2010, Sara Lattis Stone began frantically calling the burn units of various hospitals in Alabama and Louisiana. She was searching for news about her husband, Stephen, who worked on an offshore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico where a massive explosion had occurred. The blast took place the day before Stephen was scheduled to return home from his latest three-week hitch on the rig, a semisubmersible floating unit called the Deepwater Horizon.

In the hours after a spokesperson from Transocean, the company that owned the Deepwater Horizon, called to tell her that an “incident” had required the rig to be evacuated, Sara veered between panic and denial. One minute, she was telling herself that Stephen was fine. The next, she was convinced that she would never see him again. On Facebook, she came across frightening messages – “the water’s on fire!”, “the rig is burning” – posted by the spouses of other workers. At one point, Sara got on the phone with one of them, a woman who had her TV tuned to the same channel that she was watching, which was airing live coverage of the blowout. As they peered at the screen, they heard the same update, describing the blast as a catastrophic accident and raising the possibility that no one on the rig had survived. The news made them drop their phones and scream.

Eventually, Sara received another call from Transocean, informing her that although the blowout had caused multiple fatalities, Stephen was among those who had managed to escape from the burning rig. The survivors were now being transported by ferry to a hotel in New Orleans, she was told. After consulting her mother, Sara tossed some belongings into a suitcase, drove to Houston airport and boarded the next available flight to the Gulf. The following morning, at about 3.30am, she got a call from Stephen, who told her he was on his way to the hotel where she and other family members had gathered to wait. “Are you OK?” she asked him. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he said.Get the Guardian’s award-winning long reads sent direct to you every Saturday morning

In 1937, a year after he visited the coalfields of Yorkshire and Lancashire, George Orwell reflected on society’s dependence on the people who extracted these resources from beneath the earth. What Orwell found after descending into the pits – “heat, noise, confusion, darkness, foul air, and, above all, unbearably cramped space” – struck him as a “picture of hell”, teeming with miners whose exertions were as invisible as they were essential to society. “In the metabolism of the western world the coalminer is second in importance only to the man who ploughs the soil,” Orwell wrote in The Road to Wigan Pier. “He is a sort of grimy caryatid upon whose shoulders nearly everything that is not grimy is supported.”

But while condemning the greed of oil companies was easy enough, avoiding relying on the product they produced was more difficult. For all the talk of shifting to wind and solar power, fossil fuels still supplied 84% of the world’s energy in 2019, and in many places their use was increasing. Part of the reason for this was surging consumption in countries like China and India. Another factor was the massive carbon footprint of the US, which made up less than 5% of the world’s population but consumed roughly a quarter of the world’s energy. More than 80 years after The Road to Wigan Pier was published, “dirty oil” was no less important in the metabolism of global capitalism than coal had been in Orwell’s time. Although he spoke frequently about the importance of addressing the climate crisis, President Obama presided over a massive increase in crude oil production, which grew by 3.6m barrels a day during his tenure. When Obama left office, the US was the world’s leading petroleum producer. His successor, Donald Trump, was an even more unabashed promoter of the fossil fuel industry, rolling back environmental regulations and proposing to open 90% of the US’s coastal waters to offshore drilling.

Stephen Stone did not grow up dreaming of working in the energy industry. He was far more interested in enjoying his natural surroundings. Throughout his childhood, his favourite place to spend time was outdoors, swimming in the Tennessee River or trekking through the wilderness near his home in Grant, Alabama, a small town nestled in the foothills of the Appalachians. The bucolic setting suited him, at least until he got a bit older, when life in a backwoods town with limited opportunities began to feel stifling. During what would have been his senior year in high school, he started working the night shift at a rug factory in nearby Scottsboro, the same factory where his mother worked after his parents got divorced. After graduating, he quit the rug factory and enlisted in the navy. Two and a half years later, after being discharged, he returned to Grant and started calling various oil companies to see if he could land a job on a rig. He’d heard that oil companies liked to hire former navy guys and the work paid well, far more than any other job a high school graduate from rural Alabama was likely to stumble across. Some time later, he flew to Houston to interview for a position as a roustabout with GlobalSantaFe, an offshore drilling company that would later be bought by Transocean.

It was on this visit to Houston that Stephen decided to strike up a conversation with the redhead sitting next to him on the airport shuttle. The redhead was Sara. They chatted for three hours; within a year, they were married. In some ways, Stephen and Sara made for an odd couple: she was a college graduate with an introspective manner; he was a good old boy who was quick with a joke and liked to laugh and party. From the moment they started talking, though, Sara was struck by Stephen’s intelligence, the books he mentioned reading and the thoughtful gaze in his eyes. Whenever he would go offshore on a hitch in the years to come, Sara would notice, Stephen made sure to pack some reading – novels, poetry, philosophy. He also brought along a couple of pocket-size notebooks that he would fill with poems and drawings. To some college graduates, marrying a rig worker, even one who wrote poetry in his spare time, might have seemed odd. To Sara, it felt natural. Virtually everyone she knew in Katy came from a family with ties to the oil industry. Her own father had worked in the industry for decades. The rhythm of the lifestyle, marked by two- and three-week hitches during which rig workers were separated from their spouses, was familiar to Sara, who often went months without seeing her father during her childhood. When Stephen would leave on hitches, she would miss him, but she also liked having time to focus on her own interests, in particular her art. In college, she’d majored in painting and photography, visual mediums through which she’d always found it easier to express herself than words.

In the aftermath of the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon, Sara started a series of portraits of the blast’s survivors. The paintings were drafted, fittingly, in oil and were inspired by a visit that she and Stephen paid to Washington DC, where they and other survivors were invited to testify at a House judiciary committee hearing on the Deepwater disaster – a disaster that was still unfolding and that, upon closer inspection, was hardly a surprise.

The immediate cause of the blast on the Deepwater Horizon was a bubble of methane gas that floated up through the drill column, most likely because of a breach in the cement casing that enclosed it, and spread across the deck before igniting into a deadly fireball. In the view of many analysts, the deeper cause was the recklessness and greed that pervaded the oil industry. This seemed particularly pronounced at BP, the company that leased the rig from Transocean and owned the exclusive rights to the Macondo Prospect well, an oil and gas reservoir located 49 miles off the coast of Louisiana. “Make every dollar count” was BP’s motto, an ethos that pleased shareholders and drew praise from business analysts. Safety experts were more alarmed. In 2005, an explosion at a BP refinery in Texas City killed 15 workers. An investigation by the US Chemical Safety Board faulted BP for pushing for 25% budget cuts “even though much of the refinery’s infrastructure and process equipment were in disrepair”. Between 2007 and 2010, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, a regulatory body, cited BP for 760 safety violations, by far the most of any major oil company.

Leasing the Deepwater Horizon cost BP $1m a day, and the Macondo well had fallen behind schedule, increasing the pressure to brush aside concerns that might have slowed the pace of drilling. Some workers feared that raising such concerns would get them fired, which helps explain why an array of ominous signs – problems with the cementing, flaws in the blowout preventer – were ignored. Hours before the rig went up in flames, a BP executive on the rig congratulated the crew for seven years without a “lost-time incident”. After the blowout, BP scrambled to contain the oil gushing out of the well, which leaked 210m gallons of crude into the Gulf, devastating fisheries and befouling the coasts of multiple states.

The bewilderment was still apparent when I met Stephen several years later, at a bar not far from where he and Sara were living at the time. Stephen was in his late 20s, with a shaggy mop of chestnut-coloured hair and languid, downcast eyes. At the bar, he was taciturn, nodding occasionally at something Sara said while straining to keep his gaze from drifting off. Unlike some of the workers on the Deepwater Horizon, he had managed to escape from the rig without sustaining any burns or physical injuries. But as I would come to learn, the absence of visible wounds was a mixed blessing, prompting friends to wonder what was wrong with him and exacerbating the shame he felt for struggling to move on.

Since the explosion, he’d been unable to hold down a job. He avoided social gatherings. He also had trouble sleeping. The explosion on the rig had happened at night, collapsing the stairwell above the room in which Stephen had fallen asleep after completing a work shift. The blast startled him awake and sent him racing into the change room, where he slipped on a pair of fire-retardant coveralls and fumbled his way toward the deck, at which point he saw that the entire rig was smouldering and heard the panicked screams of his co-workers. It was an experience he now feared reliving every time he shut his eyes, Sara had come to realise. “The way I understand it is, he’s constantly preparing for that wake-up,” she said.

Given what he’d been through – a near-death experience that shattered his sense of security – this diagnosis made sense. Like military veterans who’d survived explosions in Iraq, Stephen was sensitive to loud noises and given to paranoid fears and panic attacks. The rattle of ice in the freezer was enough to set him off sometimes, Sara said. But as with many military veterans, there was something else that seemed to afflict Stephen no less: not fear but anger and disillusionment. These feelings percolated immediately after the blowout, he told me, when the rig’s survivors arrived at the hotel in New Orleans. They were exhausted and still reeling from the shock, yet before getting to see their families, Stephen said, they were taken to a meeting room where a Transocean manager delivered a speech that sounded to him like an exercise in spin. The experience left a bad taste in Stephen’s mouth. A few weeks later, a Transocean representative reached out to him and, over a cup of coffee at Denny’s, offered him $5,000 for the personal belongings he’d lost on the rig, which he accepted. Then the representative asked him to sign a document affirming that he had not been injured. Stephen was dumbfounded. “I’m not signing this,” he told the representative. “I don’t know if I’m injured yet – this just happened.”

When he had applied for the job at Transocean, Stephen assumed the industry followed strict safety protocols. After the blowout, as he read about how many warning signs on the Deepwater Horizon had been ignored, a wave of disillusionment washed over him. To some extent, accidents on offshore rigs were unavoidable. But the toll in lives was not the same in all countries, noted a report on the Deepwater spill that a bipartisan national commission submitted to President Obama. Between 2004 and 2009, fatalities in the offshore industry were “more than four times higher per person-hours worked in US waters than in European waters”. The report traced this disparity back to the 1980s, when a series of deadly accidents took place, including an explosion on the Piper Alpha, a platform in the North Sea, that killed 167 people. In Norway and the UK, the response was to enact stronger regulations that put the burden of preventing future disasters on industry. The US adopted a laxer approach, leaving safety to companies like BP and Transocean, which, a few months after the Deepwater blowout, announced that it was awarding bonuses to several senior executives for overseeing the “best year in safety performance” in the company’s history. When Stephen learned about the bonuses, he was still a Transocean employee. Afterward, he submitted an angry resignation letter. “I quit,” he said. “I was like, fuck you guys. I don’t want to be a part of your company.”

There was one other betrayal that appeared to weigh on Stephen: the betrayal of himself, the part of him that loved nature and, after the blowout, as the scale of the disaster became clear, felt dirtied and implicated. He felt this in particular on a road trip that Sara persuaded him to take through some of the places in the Gulf where the pollution from the spill had begun to wash up. Among their destinations was Dauphin Island, on Alabama’s Gulf Coast. During his childhood, Stephen had holidayed there with his family. It was one of his favourite places, famous for the ribbon of pristine white sand that graced its shores. After the Deepwater spill, the sand was stained with oil sludge, a sight that filled Stephen with shame and sadness. “This great place from my childhood was getting shit on,” he said, “and I was part of the group that sh