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Sep 8, 2010 · The eight failures that caused the Gulf oil spill. By Justin Mullins. 8 September 2010. Eight catastrophic failures led to the explosion that destroyed the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the ...
- Overview
- The explosion
- Leaking oil
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill began on April 20, 2010, when an explosion damaged the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. The rig's sinking on April 22 began the discharge of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
Who owned the rig responsible for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill?
The oil rig involved in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill was owned and operated by offshore oil-drilling company Transocean and leased by the oil company BP.
What caused the Deepwater Horizon oil spill?
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill occurred after a surge of natural gas blasted through a concrete core recently installed to seal an oil well for later use. Once released, the natural gas traveled up a riser to the platform of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that was over the well, where it ignited, killing 11 workers and injuring 17.
How did the Deepwater Horizon oil spill affect birds?
The Deepwater Horizon rig, owned and operated by offshore-oil-drilling company Transocean and leased by oil company BP, was situated in the Macondo oil prospect in the Mississippi Canyon, a valley in the continental shelf. The oil well over which it was positioned was located on the seabed 4,993 feet (1,522 metres) below the surface and extended approximately 18,000 feet (5,486 metres) into the rock. On the night of April 20 a surge of natural gas blasted through a concrete core recently installed by contractor Halliburton in order to seal the well for later use. It later emerged through documents released by Wikileaks that a similar incident had occurred on a BP-owned rig in the Caspian Sea in September 2008. Both cores were likely too weak to withstand the pressure because they were composed of a concrete mixture that used nitrogen gas to accelerate curing.
Once released by the fracture of the core, the natural gas traveled up the Deepwater rig’s riser to the platform, where it ignited, killing 11 workers and injuring 17. The rig capsized and sank on the morning of April 22, rupturing the riser, through which drilling mud had been injected in order to counteract the upward pressure of oil and natural gas. Without any opposing force, oil began to discharge into the gulf. The volume of oil escaping the damaged well—originally estimated by BP to be about 1,000 barrels per day—was thought by U.S. government officials to have peaked at more than 60,000 barrels per day.
Although BP attempted to activate the rig’s blowout preventer (BOP), a fail-safe mechanism designed to close the channel through which oil was drawn, the device malfunctioned. Forensic analysis of the BOP completed the following year determined that a set of massive blades known as blind shear rams—designed to slice through the pipe carrying oil—had malfunctioned because the pipe had bent under the pressure of the rising gas and oil. (A 2014 report by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board claimed that the blind shear rams had activated sooner than previously thought and may have actually punctured the pipe.)
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Efforts in May to place a containment dome over the largest leak in the broken riser were thwarted by the buoyant action of gas hydrates—gas molecules in an ice matrix—formed by the reaction of natural gas and cold water. When an attempt to employ a “top kill,” whereby drilling mud was pumped into the well to stanch the flow of oil, also failed, BP in early June turned to an apparatus called the Lower Marine Riser Package (LMRP) cap. With the damaged riser shorn from the LMRP—the top segment of the BOP—the cap was lowered into place. Though fitted loosely over the BOP and allowing some oil to escape, the cap enabled BP to siphon approximately 15,000 barrels of oil per day to a tanker. The addition of an ancillary collection system comprising several devices, also tapped into the BOP, increased the collection rate to approximately 25,000 barrels of oil a day.
In early July the LMRP cap was removed for several days so that a more permanent seal could be installed; this capping stack was in place by July 12. Though the leak had slowed, it was estimated by a government-commissioned panel of scientists that 4,900,000 barrels of oil had already leaked into the gulf. Only about 800,000 barrels had been captured. On August 3 BP conducted a “static kill,” a procedure in which drilling mud was pumped into the well through the BOP. Though similar to the failed top kill, mud could be injected at much lower pressures during the static kill because of the stabilizing influence of the capping stack. The defective BOP and the capping stack were removed in early September and replaced by a functioning BOP.
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The Deepwater Horizon oil spill (also referred to as the "BP oil spill") was an environmental disaster which began on 20 April 2010, off the coast of the United States in the Gulf of Mexico on the BP-operated Macondo Prospect, considered the largest marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry and estimated to be 8 to 31 percent larger in volume than the previous largest, the ...
- 2,500 to 68,000 sq mi (6,500 to 176,100 km²)
- 20 April – 19 September 2010, (4 months, 4 weeks and 2 days)
- 11 people killed, 17 people injured
Learn about the causes, impacts, and restoration of the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history. Find out how NOAA assessed and compensated natural resource injuries and losses in the Gulf of Mexico.
Deepwater Horizon was an oil rig that exploded in 2010, causing the largest marine oil spill in history. Learn more about the causes, impacts, and aftermath of this disaster on Wikipedia.
Apr 20, 2020 · The explosion of the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) drilling rig in the northern Gulf of Mexico on 20 April 2010 caused the deaths of 11 crew members and marked the onset of an uncontrolled oil and ...
Sep 8, 2010 · The Deepwater Horizon rig disaster caused the deaths of 11 crew and a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. ... Here is a summary of what we know so far about the BP oil spill, and the primary ...
