Gulf of Mexico BP reached an $18.7bn settlement with the US government, the states of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, as well as 400 local authorities. To date BP's cost for the clean-up, environmental and economic damages and penalties has reached $54bn. According to the National Response Center, the oil industry has thousands of minor accidents in the Gulf of Mexico every year. On May 12, 2016, a release of oil from subsea infrastructure on Shell's "Brutus" oil rig released 2,100 barrels of oil. This leak created a visible 2 mile by 13 mile oil slick in the sea about 97 miles
Offshore oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico (United States) deep-water discoveries, the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement projects that oil production from the Gulf of Mexico will increase to per year by 2013. The state of Louisiana issued its first offshore oil and gas lease in 1936, and the following year the Pure Oil Company discovered the first Louisiana offshore oil field, the Creole Field, from the shore of Cameron Parish, from a platform built on timber pilings in water. Today, there are more than 4,000 production platforms and drilling rigs off the coast of Louisiana. The first offshore well in Texas was drilled in