Environmental groups have sued the Trump administration over its approval of BP\u2019s huge new ultra-deep oil drilling project in the Gulf of Mexico, 16 years to the day since the company\u2019s Deepwater Horizon disaster caused the worst oil spill in US history.<\/p>\n
In March, the administration approved a plan by BP to drill for oil at even greater depths than the Deepwater Horizon project<\/a>, which resulted<\/a> in an explosion that killed 11 people and gushed more than 3m barrels of oil into the ocean, a leak that took 87 days to stem.<\/p>\n The oil coated shorelines across five states and caused severe damage<\/a> to wildlife such as fish, whales and sea turtles, as well as coastline ecosystems and fishing communities.<\/p>\n The British company\u2019s new $5bn project, known as Kaskida<\/a>, will be located around 250 miles off the coast of Louisiana and will plunge drilling equipment 6,000ft deep into the Gulf\u2019s water.<\/p>\n Drills will then extend much further down into the seabed itself, in all reaching down about 6 miles \u2013 deeper than the height of Mount Everest<\/a>. BP forecasts this drilling will extract around 80,000 barrels of oil a day from six wells once production starts in 2029, drawing upon a deposit that holds 10bn barrels of oil in total.<\/p>\n On Monday, the 16th anniversary of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion, a coalition of five green groups filed a lawsuit<\/a> aimed at reversing the approval of Kaskida by Trump\u2019s interior department, claiming the drilling poses a catastrophic risk to the environment and local communities.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Trump administration has teed up the entire Gulf region for a Deepwater Horizon sequel with its approval of BP\u2019s extremely risky ultra-deepwater drilling project,\u201d said Brettny Hardy, senior attorney at Earthjustice, one of the groups.<\/p>\n \u201cThe green lighting of BP\u2019s project sets a dangerously low bar for oil-and-gas companies that want to drill in our public waters. We\u2019ll see the Trump administration in court over its unlawful and insulting approval of Kaskida.\u201d<\/p>\n The lawsuit alleges BP has failed to provide legally required information related to the project and the company has been unable to demonstrate it can safely drill at such extreme depths, where \u201closs of well control\u201d incidents, which occurred in Deepwater Horizon, become more likely.<\/p>\n BP has also not shown it has the containment capabilities to prevent a much larger oil spill, of around 4.5m barrels of oil, to spread across the Gulf, the lawsuit alleges.<\/p>\n BP, which is not a defendant, rejects accusations that Kaskida will be unsafe.<\/p>\n The Trump administration has sought to accelerate domestic oil drilling across the US, including in the Gulf and contentious new areas such as the California<\/a> coast and the Arctic<\/a>, to further bolster the US\u2019 position as the world\u2019s leading producer of oil and gas, which when burned are causing the dangerous overheating of our planet.<\/p>\n