Climate groups sue US government over approval of new BP project in Gulf of Mexico

Source: The Guardian

Mon 20 Apr 2026 15.22 EDT
Last modified on Mon 20 Apr 2026 16.29 EDT


Environmental groups have sued the Trump administration over its approval of BP’s huge new ultra-deep oil drilling project in the Gulf of Mexico, 16 years to the day since the company’s Deepwater Horizon disaster caused the worst oil spill in US history. In March, the administration approved a plan by BP to drill for oil at even greater depths than the Deepwater Horizon project, which resulted in an explosion that killed 11 people and gushed more than 3m barrels of oil into the ocean, a leak that took 87 days to stem.

The oil coated shorelines across five states and caused severe damage to wildlife such as fish, whales and sea turtles, as well as coastline ecosystems and fishing communities. The British company’s new $5bn project, known as Kaskida, will be located around 250 miles off the coast of Louisiana and will plunge drilling equipment 6,000ft deep into the Gulf’s water.

Drills will then extend much further down into the seabed itself, in all reaching down about 6 miles – deeper than the height of Mount Everest. BP forecasts this drilling will extract around 80,000 barrels of oil a day from six wells once production starts in 2029, drawing upon a deposit that holds 10bn barrels of oil in total.

On Monday, the 16th anniversary of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion, a coalition of five green groups filed a lawsuit aimed at reversing the approval of Kaskida by Trump’s interior department, claiming the drilling poses a catastrophic risk to the environment and local communities. “The Trump administration has teed up the entire Gulf region for a Deepwater Horizon sequel with its approval of BP’s extremely risky ultra-deepwater drilling project,” said Brettny Hardy, senior attorney at Earthjustice, one of the groups.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/20/lawsuit-new-bp-oil-project-gulf-of-mexico