Now estimated to be spewing up to 60,000 barrels of oil into the Gulf every day, the Deepwater Horizon spill is huge, but still relatively moderate compared to the leakage that has contaminated places like the Niger Delta and Ecuador's Amazon. By early July the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico cumulative oil spill reached a bit more than six times that of the 1989 Exxon Valdez (around 27 000 barrels).

It is dwarfed, however, by the estimated equivalent of more than 50 Exxon Valdez spills into the Niger Delta by Shell, Chevron, and other companies over five decades – the equivalent of an Exxon Valdez spill every year for half a century. Time will tell what the impact of the Deepwater Horizon spill will have on BP, but it is not looking good. The third-largest oil company in the world, BP is set to pay a massive price for the apparent trade off between cost efficiency and safety as the collective fury of the US has turned on the company, with its share price plummeting and its reputation torn to shreds.

Different to much of what is happening in the on-shore exploration by Shell in much of the Niger Delta, deep-water drilling is extraordinarily complex, risky and expensive. It is also set to expand as findings on land and in shallow waters run dry. BP, the most swashbuckling and entrepreneurial, has been at the forefront of deepwater drilling and oil extraction for a long time as it sought to extract oil deeper and in different rock formations to that of most others.Courtesy: AFRICAN BUSINESS REVIEW