The Maritime Accident Casebook takes blowout data and puts it into some perspective. According to the data, across the globe, there have been 44 significant blowouts since 1955 and before the Deepwater Horizon explosion. These blowouts caused 79 deaths, and major loss of assets.
One event in 1929 caused massive marine pollution. Between 1955 and 2010, the mean period between blowouts was 15 months.
Looking at the Gulf of Mexico specifically, between 1964 and 2001, there were 10 blowouts that resulted in 27 deaths. One of those events, a blowout on the Sedco 135F resulted in a leak of up to 480,000 tons of oil. Between 1964 and 2010, there were 11 blowouts, including the Deepwater Horizon explosion. These resulted in an additional 11 deaths. The pollution from the BP oil leak as of 4th July is estimated at between 300,000 and 572,000 tons of oil.
In the North Sea, there were two blowouts over a 55-year period. One was in 1977 on a fixed rig, and the other was in 1988 on a semisubmersible. Both of these blowouts resulted in a total of one fatality.
From this data it can be safely concluded that blowouts are not as rare as the oil companies have been making them out to be.
Maritime lawyer Brian Beckcom is a Board-Certified Trial Lawyer whose primary focus is the representation of Jones Act seamen, including tankermen, galley hands, deckhands, cruise line crews, fishing vessel crew members, offshore workers and other maritime workers in accidents in Texas, across the country and international waters.
