Bp Oil Spill

On April 20, 2010 the beginning of the largest,most disastrous oil spill in the United States had begun. The oil leak was caused by an explosion that happened at approximately 10:00 p.m,killing eleven people and injuring seventeen others. Two days later, the rig sank and started to leak oil and gas from the well. After about three months of the well (Macondo) leaking oil, it finally got capped off on July 15. Within those three months, the well had leaked 134 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The leak did not stop there though. It spread all the way to other countries and islands as well. The well did not get fully sealed until September 19, 2010.
British Petroleum PLC, also very commonly known as BP (the owner of the well)
and Transocean (owner and operator of Deepwater Horizon) were the number one responsible parties in the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill, according to the United States Coast Guard. Cameron International Corporation and Halliburton were also found legally responsible. Although British Petroleum take full responsibility for their mistakes, there are many other companies and people that had a big part in the event. Some of these companies that were mentioned are Schlumberger, or LTD (which is the world's largest oilfield services company), Minerals Management Service (MMS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the United States Coast Guard (USCG). Although not mentioned until after the explosion occurred, Schlumberger had a crew on the site of Deepwater Horizon that had been working there in the months of March and April. They completed their services at Deepwater Horizon on April 15. They left a small crew on standby while they went home just in case there needed to be any more work done and to watch over it to make sure nothing went wrong. The morning of April 20, British Petroleum notified the Schlumberger crew that was on standby that they were allowed to go back to their homebase in Louisiana. There were many factors and failures in all of the companies that were mentioned before that led up to the explosion and oil spill at Deepwater Horizon. In fact, there were eight failures that included almost every named company.
As mentioned before, the crew had decided to leave the site. In order for them to leave though, they had to seal off the well by pouring concrete into it. That was one of the first failures that lead to the explosion. The cement did not seal the well which caused oil and gas begin to leak through the pipe leading up to the surface. That was the first failure. The pipe was supposed to be sealed in two ways; by being sealed with cement and then two mechanical valves that were designed to stop the flow of oil and gas from going up the pipe and to the surface. Both of the valves failed to do so, which allowed oil and gas to travel up the pipe and to the surface to the water.
The crew had carried out many different pressure tests that were supposed to check to see if the cement had actually sealed the well like it was supposed to. They misinterpreted the test results. They assumed that the well was under control, but it definitely was not.
If there is gas and oil flowing to the surface, obviously because of a leak, the crew is trained to be able to detect that kind of fluctuation because there will be abrupt increased pressures in the well. Approximately fifty minutes before Deepwater Horizon’s first explosion, there were such increases, but no one interpreted it as a leak.
Around eight minutes before the explosion, there was a second valve failure.
The crew saw mud and gas pouring onto the floor of the rig. All the members of the crew instantly attempted to close the valve in the Blowout Preventer, which was intended to shut off the flow of high-pressure oil and gas from the well, but failed to seal the well because the drill pipe buckled for reasons that are still unknown. The crew could have redirected the flow of the mud and gas away from Deepwater Horizon and into the gulf, but instead they directed it to a separator device that was designed to separate gas from a mudflow similar to what was happening but in much smaller quantities. The separator got overwhelmed and flammable gas began to flood the
rig.
Deepwater had a gas-detection system to sound alarms and trigger the cut off of the ventilation fans.
Closing down the ventilation systems would have prevented gas from reaching ignition sources, like Deepwater’s engine, but the system was in manual mode not allowing them to be engaged. The explosion destroyed the control lines which the crew needed to shut down the blowout preventer’s safety valves. But that wasn’t the only problem in the safety system. The device has two separate safety systems. Those systems are designed to shut the valves automatically when the blowout preventer loses contact with the surface. Both of the systems failed because one of them had a defective switch and the other had a bad battery.
This tragedy had a very big impact on British Petroleum, Cameron, Transocean, and Halliburton. The cost of the settlement is twenty billion dollars. British Petroleum took full legal responsibility over it, but the other mentioned companies are also paying some of the settlement in an agreement. Under the settlement agreement, Cameron payed BP two hundred and fifty million dollars and it immediately went to the twenty billion they owe. As of today, BP has paid out 7.5 billion dollars to individuals, businesses, and government
entities.
Overall, the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil leak had a very dramatic effect on the sea life, and the personal lives of those 11 people that tragically and unexpectedly passed. Even though 7 years have passed, the effects still linger and the recovery is very slow. Many things could, and should, have prevented it from happening. But it didn’t. Now BP and all other companies that were involved are paying the consequences.