By EFE
Environmental groups sued the Trump Administration to prevent British Petroleum (BP) from starting a deepwater drilling project in the Gulf of Mexico, arguing that the probability of a loss of well control incident occurring is six to seven times greater than normal standards.
The honest complaint targets the $5 billion project known as Kaskida, approved by President Donald Trump’s administration last month, which will take place about 400 kilometers off the coast of Louisiana and at a depth of 10 kilometers below the seabed, a distance greater than the height of Mount Everest.
The plaintiffs have warned that Kaskida will be located “in higher risk waters”when compared to the waters where BP’s Deepwater Horizon platform was located in the Gulf of Mexico, which in 2010 caused the worst offshore oil spill in the history of the United States.
The lawsuit was presented just this April 20, when the 16 years since the Deepwater Horizon explosionwhich claimed the lives of 11 people, wiped out countless marine animals and caused billions of dollars in damage in the Gulf, including the elimination of thousands of local jobs in sectors such as fishing and tourism.
Earthjustice, which represents the groups Wholesome Gulf, Turtle Island Restoration Network, Habitat Recovery Venture, Sierra Membership and Heart for Biological Diversity, has challenged the approval of the proposal. BP because the legally required information “It is absent or has significant flaws,” as explained in a statement.
The groups claim that BP failed to demonstrate that it has the expertisethe technical knowledge and certified equipment necessary to carry out safe drilling under the extreme conditions of the Kaskida site.
They emphasize that the probability of a loss of well control incident, similar to the one that caused the Deepwater Horizon disaster, “is six to seven times greater” compared to typical deepwater oil wells.
BP hopes to extract about 80,000 barrels of oil per day of this project from 2029.
Environmentalists have warned that BP did not demonstrate in its proposal that it will have the necessary containment capabilities if it must stop an out-of-control well to prevent it from spilling 4.5 million barrels of oil or more throughout the Gulf of Mexico.
Brettny Hardy, a senior attorney at Earthjustice, said in the statement that approval of the BP project “sets a dangerously high standard low for oil and gas companies that want to drill” in the country’s public waters.
“We will face the Trump administration in court due to their illegal and insulting approval of the Kaskida project,” he added.
Keep reading:
- Democrats demand transparency from the Trump administration on Venezuelan crude oil
- Sale, control and reinvestment: this is how the oil agreement imposed by the US in Venezuela will work
