Oil Spill in Gulf of Mexico

Less than a month after Obama announced his new drilling plan that involved deepwater in the Gulf of Mexico, an explosion caused a drilling rig to sink. 11 remain missing after the biggest oil rig explosion in 20 years. The explosion occurred off Louisiana and the rig is leaking 42,000 gallons (aka 1,000 barrels) of oil per day spread over an area that's 48 miles long by 80 miles wide.

The rig belongs to Transocean Ltd., a Swiss contractor working under BP lease. The two companies are using remote-controlled vehicles to close a blowout valve to stop the oil from reaching the ocean floor. Should that fail, the companies may drill another well and pump fluid to stop the oil or gas from leaking.

The 1000+ cleanup crew—including the US Coast Guard, federal government and BP—has to contend with thunderstorms, rain and rough waters while they work. One good thing about the rough weather is that the wind is helping push the spill away from the shore. However, there are reports the winds may change direction.

BP says it's able to aggressively work on the clean up process because it planned for such an incident. Cleanup efforts may still prevent the leak from turning into an environmental disaster. So far, skimming vessels have absorbed over 48,000 gallons of oil and water.

Fortunately, most of the leak is a thin mixture of oil and water with only 3 percent having a thicker consistency. And wildlife looks unaffected, so far.

BP lucked out that this drill was a small deposit, so the company should see little impact on production despite the cleanup costing toward $100 million. Furthermore, BP reported doubling its profits in the first quarter.

It'll be interesting to see how this, if it does, affects Obama's recent deepwater drilling plans.