Two years ago, up to 4.9 billion barrels of oil were spilled
into the Gulf of Mexico following an explosion at BP's Deepwater
Horizon platform. It took over four months to seal the well and
several more to clean up sea, coasts and rivers. Following this
catastrophe, BP allocated half a billion dollars to the Gulf
of Mexico Research Initiative to study the impact of the spill
on the environment.
Particular attention is paid to the physical distribution of
petroleum, its evolution and degradation, environmental effects and
technology developments to avoid a similar incident in the future.
Majority of the chosen projects are set up at American
universities. This round, the University of Copenhagen was selected
as the first institute from outside the U.S.