Taylor Energy
Company typePrivate
IndustryOil drilling
Founded1979
FounderPatrick F. Taylor
Headquarters
New Orleans, Louisiana
,
United States
Key people
Chief Executive Officer: Phyllis Taylor
ProductsOil and gas
Websitewww.taylorenergy.com

Taylor Energy is an American oil company that is based in New Orleans, Louisiana that drilled for oil in the Gulf of Mexico.[1][2][3] The company was founded on July 20, 1979 by Patrick F. Taylor.[3][4] Following his death in 2004, his wife Phyllis Taylor assumed ownership and became the chairwoman and CEO—making her the wealthiest woman in Louisiana.[5] As of November 2021, Phyllis Taylor remains the CEO of the company.[1] Despite having been a relatively small producer,[1] the company has attracted widespread attention for the Taylor oil spill, one of the largest oil spills in American history, and the longest ongoing oil spill as of June 2022.[1][2][6]

History

The company's founder, Patrick F. Taylor, grew up in Beaumont, Texas, and attended Louisiana State University.[7] He married Phyllis Miller in 1965, who had grown up in Abbeville, Louisiana, and had been one of the first women to graduate from Tulane Law School.[8]

Taylor Energy was first incorporated on July 20, 1979.[3]

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 and Samsung C&T Corporation.[9][10] The MC20 wells which were and are still leaking, was not part of the sale. [11] [12] Despite this apparent sale, the company continues to be incorporated in New Orleans,[2][3] retains its own brand,[1][2] and has its own Chief Executive.[1]

2004 Taylor Energy oil spill

Main article: Taylor oil spill

In 2004, Hurricane Ivan knocked over a large oil platform operated by Taylor Energy, which began releasing oil into the Gulf of Mexico.[1] 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.[1] In 2013, the company partnered with a number of United States government organizations, including the U.S. Coast Guard, to release a report suggesting that the broken platform had only been releasing "about three gallons per day" of oil into the Gulf.[1] 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.[6]

In 2015, the Associated Press reported on Taylor Energy's broken well, and noted that Taylor Energy had only one full-time employee in April 2015.[13] By October 2018, the continuing spill was approaching the level of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill,[14] 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.[15] [16][17] The Couvillion Group, a marine construction company based in Belle Chase, Louisiana, was hired by the government to recover and contain the spill in 2019;[1][2] in April 2019, the company built an underwater containment system.[18] 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."[19] The company had collected over a million gallons of oil as of July 2022.[6] 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.[15]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wertheim, Joe (November 7, 2021). "Taylor Energy Oil Spill: Stanching the longest-running oil spill you've likely never heard of". www.cbsnews.com. Retrieved November 7, 2021.
  2. ^ a b c d e Baurick, Tristan (July 1, 2021). "Taylor Energy loses appeal against Belle Chasse company cleaning up its 17-year-long oil leak". NOLA.com. Retrieved November 7, 2021.
  3. ^ a b c d "Taylor Energy Co". www.bloomberg.com. Archived from the original on November 7, 2021. Retrieved November 7, 2021.
  4. ^ "Patrick F Taylor Story". Patrick F Taylor Foundation. Retrieved March 3, 2015.
  5. ^ Eisinger, Jesse; Kiel, Paul; Ernsthausen, Jeff (December 9, 2021). "A Massive Oil Spill Helped One Billionaire Avoid Paying Income Tax for 14 Years". ProPublica. Archived from the original on December 9, 2021. Retrieved December 10, 2021. Phyllis inherited the company and became the wealthiest woman in Louisiana, worth an estimated $1.6 billion.
  6. ^ a b c WERTHEIM, JON (June 5, 2022). "Taylor Energy Oil Spill: Stanching the longest-running oil spill you've likely never heard of". CBS News. Retrieved September 30, 2022.
  7. ^ "Member Profile: Patrick F. Taylor". Horatio Alger. Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, Inc. Retrieved September 30, 2022.
  8. ^ Pope, John (May 26, 2016). "'The gentle dove': Phyllis M. Taylor to receive The Times-Picayune Loving Cup". The Times-Picayune. Retrieved September 30, 2022.
  9. ^ Carr, Martha (February 1, 2008). "Taylor Energy being sold to Korea National Oil, Samsung". The Times-Picayune. Retrieved March 3, 2015.
  10. ^ "UPDATE 1-South Korean firms acquire stakes in oil fields". Reuters. January 31, 2008. Retrieved September 30, 2022.
  11. ^ Lepic, Bojan (July 19, 2022). "U.S. Coast Guard Contains Over 1 Mn Gallons From Longest Oil Spill". Rigzone. Retrieved September 30, 2022.
  12. ^ Mason, Andrew (2019). "An Integrated Assessment of Oil and Gas Release into the Marine Environment at the Former Taylor Energy MC20 Site". NOAA Technical Memorandum NOS NCCOS 260: 147. Retrieved September 30, 2022.
  13. ^ Schlanger, Zoë (April 18, 2015). "Oil Spill You've Never Heard of Has Been Leaking Into Gulf of Mexico for a Decade". Newsweek. Retrieved April 19, 2015.
  14. ^ Darryl Fears (October 21, 2018). "A 14-year-long oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico verges on becoming one of the worst in U.S. history". The Washington Post.
  15. ^ a b Baurick, Tristan (September 1, 2020). "Judge dismisses Taylor Energy lawsuit against company cleaning up its oil leak". NOLA.com. Retrieved September 30, 2022.
  16. ^ Malo, Sebastien (December 22, 2021). "Taylor Energy, feds reach $475 mln settlement in longest-running oil spill". Reuters. Retrieved September 30, 2022.
  17. ^ Darryl Fears (March 2, 2019). "The U.S. is making an effort to end the longest oil spill in history. This company is fighting against it in court". Chicago Tribune.
  18. ^ Fears, Darryl (July 1, 2019). "A 'volcano' at the bottom of the gulf". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on November 8, 2021. Retrieved December 10, 2021.
  19. ^ Baurick, Tristan (May 3, 2020). "How a Louisiana engineer's invention protects the Gulf from a 'volcano' spewing oil". The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate. Archived from the original on November 8, 2021. Retrieved December 10, 2021.

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