10 years after BP spill: Oil drilled deeper; rules relaxed

KEVIN McGILL and MATTHEW BROWN

Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Ten years after an oil rig explosion killed 11 workers and unleashed an environmental nightmare in the Gulf of Mexico, companies are drilling into deeper and deeper waters, where the payoffs can be huge but the risks are greater than ever.

Industry leaders and government officials say they're determined to prevent a repeat of BP's Deepwater Horizon disaster. It spilled 134 million gallons of oil that fouled beaches from Louisiana to Florida, killed hundreds of thousands of marine animals and devastated the region's tourist econ...