oil
An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturated ...
company that is based in
New Orleans
New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...
,
Louisiana
Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...
that drilled for oil in the
Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an oceanic basin, ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of ...
. The company was founded on July 20, 1979 by Patrick F. Taylor. Following his death in 2004, his wife Phyllis Taylor assumed ownership and became the
chairwoman
The chairperson, also chairman, chairwoman or chair, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the grou ...
and
CEO
A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...
—making her the wealthiest woman in Louisiana. , Phyllis Taylor remains the CEO of the company. Despite having been a relatively small producer, the company has attracted widespread attention for the
Taylor oil spill
The 2004 Taylor Energy oil spill is an ongoing spill located in the Gulf of Mexico, around off the coast of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is the result of the destruction of a Taylor Energy oil platform during Hurricane Ivan in 2004. It is t ...
, one of the largest
oil spill
An oil spill is the release of a liquid petroleum hydrocarbon into the environment, especially the marine ecosystem, due to human activity, and is a form of pollution. The term is usually given to marine oil spills, where oil is released into th ...
s in American history, and the longest ongoing oil spill as of June 2022.
Beaumont, Texas
Beaumont is a coastal city in the U.S. state of Texas. It is the county seat, seat of government of Jefferson County, Texas, Jefferson County, within the Beaumont–Port Arthur, Texas, Port Arthur Beaumont–Port Arthur metropolitan area, metropo ...
, and attended
Louisiana State University
Louisiana State University (officially Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as LSU) is a public land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The university was founded in 1860 nea ...
. He married Phyllis Miller in 1965, who had grown up in
Abbeville, Louisiana
Abbeville is a city in, and the parish seat of, Vermilion Parish, Louisiana, United States, west of New Orleans and southwest of Baton Rouge. The population was 12,257 at the 2010 census. At the 2020 population estimates program, the populati ...
, and had been one of the first women to graduate from
Tulane Law School
Tulane University Law School is the law school of Tulane University. It is located on Tulane's Uptown campus in New Orleans
New Orleans ( , ,
Taylor Energy was first incorporated on July 20, 1979.
Circa February 1, 2008, Taylor Energy Company, one of the largest privately owned oil and gas companies operating in the Gulf of Mexico, agreed to sell all its energy assets to a joint venture between
Korea National Oil Corporation
Korea National Oil Corporation (KNOC) is the national oil and gas company of South Korea and one of the most important industrial companies in the country. The company has operated and continues to operate oil and gas fields in Vietnam, Peru, In ...
and
Samsung C&T Corporation
Samsung C&T Corporation ("Construction & Trading Corporation"; formerly Samsung Corporation; Korean: 삼성물산), is a South Korean construction and engineering company. It was founded in 1938 as the first Samsung company and was initially in ...
. The MC20 wells which were and are still leaking, was not part of the sale. Despite this apparent sale, the company continues to be incorporated in
New Orleans
New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...
, retains its own brand, and has its own Chief Executive.
2004 Taylor Energy oil spill
In 2004,
Hurricane Ivan
Hurricane Ivan was a large, long-lived, Cape Verde hurricane that caused widespread damage in the Caribbean and United States. The cyclone was the ninth named storm, the sixth hurricane and the fourth major hurricane of the active 2004 Atlan ...
knocked over a large
oil platform
An oil platform (or oil rig, offshore platform, oil production platform, and similar terms) is a large structure with facilities to extract and process petroleum and natural gas that lie in rock formations beneath the seabed. Many oil platfor ...
operated by Taylor Energy, which began releasing
oil
An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturated ...
into the
Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an oceanic basin, ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of ...
. This oil spill attracted little attention in subsequent years, partially a result of the company reporting that only a small amount of oil had been released. In 2013, the company partnered with a number of United States government organizations, including the
U.S. Coast Guard
The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, mul ...
, to release a report suggesting that the broken platform had only been releasing "about three gallons per day" of oil into the Gulf. These estimates have been disproven in multiple ways including the fact that U.S. Coast Guard contractor, Couvillion Group, has collected over a million gallons as of July 2022.
In 2015, the
Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...
reported on Taylor Energy's broken well, and noted that Taylor Energy had only one full-time employee in April 2015. By October 2018, the continuing spill was approaching the level of the 2010 ''Deepwater Horizon'' oil spill, the largest marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry.
In 2019, Taylor Energy went to court to stop the government's efforts to fix the leak, filing four lawsuits against the Interior Department, U.S. Coast Guard, and Couvillion Group. The Couvillion Group, a marine construction company based in
Belle Chase, Louisiana
Belle Chasse ( ) is a census-designated place (CDP) in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, United States, on the west bank of the Mississippi River. Belle Chasse is part of the Greater New Orleans metropolitan area. The population was 10,579 at the 20 ...
, was hired by the government to recover and contain the spill in 2019; in April 2019, the company built an underwater containment system. In its first year of operation, the system retrieved around 400,000 gallons of oil; the Coast Guard considers a release of 100,000 gallons of oil in coastal waters a "spill of national significance." The company had collected over a million gallons of oil as of July 2022. The lawsuit against Couvillion Group by Taylor Energy for “trespassing” as they worked to contain the spill was dismissed by U.S. District Court Judge Greg G. Guidry on August 21, 2020.