The year was 1979, June 3 of that year to be more precise.
An oil platform called IXTOC 1 was drilling a two mile deep exploratory well in Mexico’s Bay of Campeche, 600 miles south of Texas in the Gulf of Mexico.
The well blew out, pouring 30,000 gallons of crude oil a day for ten months into the Gulf of Mexico.
In all, more than 140 million gallons .. nearly 3 and a half million barrels .. of crude oil flowed into Gulf waters.
The IXTOC 1 disaster was the worst oil spill in history to that date.
It remained history’s worst oil spill until an even worse disaster some years later, and I am not referring to the on-going BP oil catstrophe.
Up until the BP blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, what was the worstoil spill in history .. how much oil was spilled .. when was it ..and who caused it?
