Deepwater Horizon Disaster: The BP Oil Spill
Deepwater Horizon Accident
The Deepwater Horizon Disaster (also referred to as the BP oil spill, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the BP oil disaster, or the Macondo blowout) occurred on April 20th 2010. Methane gas from the Macondo wellhead (that was being closed off) leaked up onto the drill rig and exploded, killing 11 people and starting the largest ocean toxicology experiment in the world.
The oil and gas industry, long lured by Gulf reserves and public incentives developed and deployed new technologies, in pursuit of valuable energy supplies in increasingly deeper waters farther from the coastline. Regulators, however, failed to keep pace with the industrial expansion and new technology that is often because of industry’s resistance
to more effective oversight. The result was a serious, and ultimately inexcusable, shortfall in supervision of offshore drilling that played out in the Macondo well blowout and the catastrophic oil spill.
The Deepwater Horizon Disaster (also referred to as the BP oil spill, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the BP oil disaster, or the Macondo blowout) occurred on April 20th 2010. Methane gas from the Macondo wellhead (that was being closed off) leaked up onto the drill rig and exploded, killing 11 people and starting the largest ocean toxicology experiment in the world.
The oil and gas industry, long lured by Gulf reserves and public incentives developed and deployed new technologies, in pursuit of valuable energy supplies in increasingly deeper waters farther from the coastline. Regulators, however, failed to keep pace with the industrial expansion and new technology that is often because of industry’s resistance
to more effective oversight. The result was a serious, and ultimately inexcusable, shortfall in supervision of offshore drilling that played out in the Macondo well blowout and the catastrophic oil spill.