Trump Administration Approves Revival of Kaskida Project Amid Environmental Controversy
The federal government has approved the revival of the Kaskida project, an ambitious $5 billion investment with which British oil company BP seeks to extract up to 10 billion barrels in the ultra-deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico.On March 13, President Donald Trump’s administration approved the continuation of the Kaskida project, led by the British energy company BP in the Gulf of Mexico. Crude oil extraction in these deep waters is expected to begin in 2029.
The initial phase is estimated to produce around 275 million barrels of oil, from an area of the seabed that is estimated to hold up to 10 billion barrels. This approval comes nearly 16 years after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig, also owned by BP, which killed 11 workers and caused the largest accidental oil spill in U.S. history. What is known about the Kaskida project A spokesman for the project told Reuters that the $5 billion investment will facilitate access to resources located in the Paleogene deposits. Although Kaskida was discovered two decades ago, it has not been significantly exploited due to geological complexity and a lack of technology to handle high-pressure conditions in ultra-deep waters. The Interior Department’s authorization has generated strong opposition from environmental organizations and Democratic congressmen. Critics warn of the risk of repeating environmental disasters that harm the populations and ecosystems of the Gulf Coast. “It is deeply disturbing that the Office of Ocean Energy Management has approved a proposal riddled with legal shortcomings, especially given BP’s track record,” Brettny Hardy, senior counsel at Earthjustice, told Bloomberg. Hardy added that this decision makes a mockery for the millions of people whose lives were affected by the 2010 disaster. The marks left by the Deepwater Horizon disaster Over 87 days, the Macondo well—connected to the platform at a depth of 1,524 meters—released approximately 3.19 million barrels of oil into the ocean. In addition to causing damages estimated at 70 billion dollars, according to the GreenPeace organization, at least 6,814 dead animals were confirmed, including more than 6,000 birds, almost 700 sea turtles and 101 dolphins, porpoises and whales. Nearly 12 months after the incident, dead animals were still turning up: 39 dead sea turtles were swept away by currents toward the islands and the Mississippi Straits mainland, most of them endangered olive ridley turtles. In addition, in the following months, 139 dead cetaceans were sighted carried by the waves on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. “Many other victims may have gone unnoticed, such as birds and other creatures that may have gone deep into the marshes while trying to escape the oil on land,” the organization said in a report released a year after the accident. For its part, the journal Conservation Biology concluded that the total mortality of dolphins and whales as a result of the spill may have been 50 times higher than the original estimate and that some 5,050 could have perished undetected. |