Unplugged La. wells spewing since ’04

An oil spill that has leaked millions of barrels into the Gulf of Mexico since Hurricane Ivan in September 2004 has gone unplugged for so long it verges on becoming one of the worst offshore disasters in American history. Some 300-to-700 barrels of oil per day have been spewing from the Taylor Energy oil platform’s sinking 12 miles off the Louisiana coast during Ivan. A number of the wells have never been capped, and U.S. officials estimate it could continue throughout the 21st century. With no fix in sight, the spill is threatening to overtake BP's 2010 Horizon disaster, also in the GoM, as the largest ever. (Source: Washington Post 10/21/18) Taylor Energy has been an independent, New Orleans-based oil company since its founding in 1979 by Patrick F. Taylor. Since his death in 2004, his wife Phyllis Taylor has assumed ownership and is the chairman/CEO, and making her the wealthiest woman in Louisiana. Taylor has been actively supporting the reconstruction of New Orleans since its destruction during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Taylor Energy, one of the largest privately owned oil and gas companies operating in the GoM, agreed in February 2008 to sell all its energy assets to a joint venture between Korea National Oil Corp. and Samsung Corp., according to the Times Picayune.