Deepwater Horizon oil spill:
Wonderful and useful movie 🎥
The Deepwater Horizon disaster of 2010 caused 134 million gallons of oil to pour into the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 people and injuring 17 more. It had devastating ecological and economic impacts from Texas to Florida. The consequences of this event are still affecting marine life and residents along the Gulf Coast today. An investigation revealed that what happened at the Deepwater Horizon was completely preventable and was the result of failures in communication, poor regulatory practices for deepwater drilling, and a disregard for warning signs.
WHAT HAPPENED ON THE DEEPWATER HORIZON?
On 2010, an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform engulfed the oil rig in flames. before nearly three dozen people were injured or killed. The event also led to a catastrophic oil spill that wasn’t contained for three months, causing unprecedented damage to natural resources in the Gulf.
While accident, the Deepwater Horizon, a semi-submersible offshore drilling rig, was operating in the Macondo Prospect, an oil and gas prospect 41 miles off the southeast coast of Louisiana. The owners of the Deepwater Horizon had been contracted to drill a 20,000-foot exploration well into the Macondo reservoir. The goal was to determine whether oil could be produced from four miles below the ocean’s surface in this part of the Gulf of Mexico.
WHAT CAUSED THE EXPLOSION ON THE DEEPWATER HORIZON?
The Macondo well was dug 5,000 feet beneath the ocean’s surface. There were problems from the very beginning of the project, including:
A drillpipe that got stuck during drilling
Drilling mud leaking out of the well through cracks in the surrounding rock
The presence of gas at unexpectedly high pressures, which entered the well from the surrounding rock formation
All of these issues caused significant delays in drilling. In fact, the Macondo project was $58 million over budget at the time of the catastrophe. Everyone involved was feeling considerable pressure to finish the project without further delays or expense. At the beginning of April, engineers working on the project determined that the risks involved in further drilling were very high. The concern was that additional fracturing of the rock formation was likely to occur if they continued to drill.
Although the planned depth of the Macondo well was supposed to be 20,200 feet, the engineers decided to stop drilling at 18,360 feet due to these concerns. The next step was to install a steel production casing into the final section of the well in order to pump cement around the well. The purpose of the cement was to seal gas and oil into the well until it was time to produce oil.
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