Fish and Oil Rigs?!? The Combination No One Would’ve Guessed
By: Sonya Malik
Typically when we think of oil we think of money, resources, cars, and the climate. Something behind the production of oil is the oil rig. An oil rig is used to extract oil and gas from beneath the earth’s surface. Oil rigs are typically in bodies of water far from coasts of lands. As people want to move towards a more sustainable future the oil rig industry is not as favorable. As a society we don’t necessarily want to eradicate all oil rigs, but find more positive things to see in them. But there may be more behind the scenes of these steel structures in the middle of our oceans than meets the eye.
According to Radziner ‘24 of Scientific American, oil rigs have shown to be used as habitats for marine life to flourish. He mentions how the red snapper fish’s population was declining due to overfishing and how when the species expanded west across the Gulf from Florida at the same time thousands of oil platforms were being built across the northwestern and north-central Gulf. After years of research it was discovered that the red snapper’s were using these oil platforms as a home that helped significantly increase their population size.
Radziner ‘24 also writes of how removing just California’s oil platforms would cost oil companies around an estimated 1.5 billion dollars, which isn’t necessarily financially sustainable. Nunn ‘24 of National Geographic agrees with this point as she points out that dismantling oil rigs which have the height of skyscrapers, is a very expensive venture. She also mentions that this process would involve plugging wells, removing mass amounts of equipment, and changing and restoring the seafloor.
Nunn ‘24 also brings up the fact that these rigs have been adapted as habitats for marine life throughout the decades since being built; she compares them to functioning like an artificial reef.
All in all, even though oil rigs are looked at as being more financially beneficial than sustainably beneficial, there are some pros to the sustainability side. Climate change has already negatively impacted our ocean life on Earth and oil rigs serving as homes that have increased numbers in species is a surprise no one 60 years ago would’ve guessed. These oil rigs could be used as a stepping stone in finding ways to preserve habitats deep in the ocean until we can find more solutions.
Sources:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/should-offshore-oil-rigs-be-turned-into-artificial-reefs/
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/decommission-oil-rigs-platforms-wells-reefs