Some nations make the sorry mistake of only fearing the worst and begin preparing for it when oil companies head into production phase.
But an oil spill can happen when operators are in their exploratory stage. This was the case of the great Deepwater Horizon oil spill. It was recognized as the worst oil spill in U.S. history.
Within days of April 20, 2010 explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, underwater cameras revealed that a pipe was leaking oil and gas on the ocean floor about 42 miles off the coast of Louisiana.
By the time the well was capped on July 15, 2010 (87 days later), an estimated 3.19 million barrels of oil had leaked into the Gulf.
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