The 2004 Taylor Energy oil spill is an ongoing spill located in the Gulf of Mexico, around 11 miles (18 km) off the coast of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is the result of the destruction of a Taylor Energy oil platform during Hurricane Ivan in 2004. It is the longest-running oil spill in U.S. history. It was first brought to public attention when contamination at the site was noticed in 2010 by those monitoring the nearby Deepwater Horizon oil spill. A report by the Associated Press in 2015 challenged the estimates of the extent of the leak originally given by the company and the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), which were then revised to be around 1,000 times greater than initially reported.
Upper estimates of the spill have been calculated to be as much as 140,000,000 US gallons (530,000,000 L; 120,000,000 imp gal), or about 3,333,300 barrels of oil lost over the life of the disaster, and affecting an area as large as 8 square miles (21 km2). As of late 2019, it was estimated between nine and 108 barrels per day are being spilled, making it one of the worst modern oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico by volume. Since 2019, Couvillion...