Learn about the experimental use of entangled wire as an obstruction to mitigate the effects of blowout preventer failure in an oil well. 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. The oil slick produced by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill has covered as much 16,000 square miles (41,424 square kilometers), an area about twice the size of the state of New Jersey, with the exact size and location of the slick fluctuating from daily depending on weather conditions. Smoke rises from surface oil being burned by cleanup crews in the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in April 2010. On 20 April, the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 workers and causing an oil spill that soon became the worst environmental disaster in US history. The Gulf Oil Spill Is Not the Worst U.S. Environmental Disaster. It was an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the largest marine oil spill in history. This entailed pumping cement through a channel—known as a relief well—that paralleled and eventually intersected the original well. On April 20, 2010, the oil drilling rig Deepwater Horizon, operating in the Macondo Prospect in the Gulf of Mexico, exploded and sank resulting in the death of 11 workers on the Deepwater Horizon and the largest spill of oil in the history of marine oil drilling operations. Two days later, following a series of pressure tests, it was announced that the well was completely sealed. Fireboat response crews battling the blazing remnants of the offshore oil rig Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico, April 21, 2010. This article is more than 1 year old. 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. The second had been intended to serve as a backup and was not completed. Only about 800,000 barrels had been captured. An official website of the United States government. The gas component of the slushy material quickly transitioned into a fully gaseous state and then ignited into a series of explosions and then a firestorm. Currently, our technologies rely on our ability to extract natural oils from the ground and process them into useable products like gasoline. Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Updates? Deepwater Horizon fue una torre petrolífera de diseño RBS-8D de quinta generación, semisumergible, de posicionamiento dinámico y de aguas ultraprofundas, [5] cuyos taladros perforaban el lecho marino mientras que otro tipo de torres y plataformas son utilizadas para extraer petróleo de pozos ya taladrados. 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. Some of the messages were forensically recovered; one contained a flow rate estimate three times higher than what BP had publicly attested to at the time. Deepwater Horizon oil spill, also called Gulf of Mexico oil spill, largest marine oil spill in history, caused by an April 20, 2010, explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig—located in the Gulf of Mexico, approximately 41 miles (66 km) off the coast of Louisiana —and its subsequent sinking on April 22. Located 41 miles off the coast of Louisiana in the Gulf a Mexico, the oil rig “”Deepwater Horizon”” was owned by Transocean, who was under contract with BP (British Petroleum) for the initial drilling of oil wells. Corrections? The success of these procedures cleared the way for a “bottom kill,” considered to be the most likely means of permanently sealing the leak. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica. The Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded on 20 April 2010, sank two days later, and now the oil spill from the uncapped valve on the sea floor is causing an environmental emergency, about to wash ashore on the fragile Louisiana coastline. 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. United States Environmental Protection Agency, You may need a PDF reader to view some of the files on this page. Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana has established the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill website for this purpose. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill added roughly 800 million liters of hydrocarbons to the Gulf of Mexico. The BP oil spill began when the Deepwater Horizon rig suffered an explosion on April 20, 2010. 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. Of the 126 workers at the site that day, 11 were killed by the blast. On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded, killing 11 people. Smithsonian holdings may show oil's impact in Gulf. On September 17 the bottom kill maneuver was successfully executed through the first relief well. $159.5 million Civil Penalty Ruling Against Anadarko Petroleum Co. Natural Resource Damage Assessment and Restoration Planning, February 17, 2012: $90 million civil settlement with, January 3, 2013: $1 billion civil settlement with, RestoreTheGulf: official federal government site for spill. Deepwater Horizon oil spill. environmental disaster, Gulf of Mexico [2010]. In November 2012 two senior officers on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, Robert Kaluza and Donald Vidrine, were charged with manslaughter. He was convicted in December 2013. A Decade After Deepwater Horizon, Oil Still Flows From This Prolific Patch In ... BP’s drillers on the Deepwater Horizon platform lost control of a well they were ... it was a sizable spill. However, it was verified in June that the plumes were in fact from the Deepwater spill. 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. 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. Collections. The Deepwater Horizon Spill ‘On the night of April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, located 72 kilometers offshore southeast of Venice, Louisiana, exploded and caught fire, resulting in the deaths of eleven workers. Omissions? Deepwater Horizon – BP Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill On April 20, 2010, the oil drilling rig Deepwater Horizon , operating in the Macondo Prospect in the Gulf of Mexico, exploded and sank resulting in the death of 11 workers on the Deepwater Horizon and the largest spill of oil in the history of marine oil drilling operations. With the damaged riser shorn from the LMRP—the top segment of the BOP—the cap was lowered into place. Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. (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.). The Deepwater Horizon incident was the largest marine oil spill in history. When the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill began in April 2010, it quickly became an “all-hands-on-deck” situation for NOAA. Construction of two such wells had begun in May. Claims by several research groups that subsurface plumes of dispersed hydrocarbons had been detected in May were initially dismissed by BP and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Research. The largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history As the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill released 134 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico over a period of 87 days, fouling 1,300 miles of shoreline along five states. in English from Illinois State University in 2005. 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