What caused the April 20 2010 oil rig explosion?

What caused the April 20 2010 oil rig explosion?

At approximately 7:45 pm CDT, on 20 April 2010, high-pressure methane gas from the well expanded into the marine riser and rose into the drilling rig, where it ignited and exploded, engulfing the platform.

What caused the BP oil spill explosion?

The BP oil spill of 2010 started suddenly, explosively, and with deadly force. As a crew on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig worked to close up an exploratory oil well deep under the Gulf of Mexico, a pulse of gas shot up, buckling the drill pipe.

What happened in the BP Oil Spill 2010?

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.

How did BP handle the Deepwater Horizon disaster of 2010?

BP engineers use undersea robots to move the containment chamber over the larger of the two remaining leaks on the seabed. This containment method has never before been attempted at such a depth. Efforts to close valves on a failed blowout preventer with underwater robots are abandoned.

How much did it cost to clean up the Deepwater Horizon oil spill?

In July 2016, BP announced Deepwater Horizon’s total cost was $61.6 billion dollars. According to Reuters, however, as of September, the British oil and gas company has paid $63.4 billion in legal fees and cleanup costs.

How much money did the Deepwater Horizon cost BP?

BP and its partners have spent $71 billion over 10 years on Deepwater Horizon disaster.

Did anyone from BP go to jail?

BP Exploration and Production Inc. pleaded guilty to 14 criminal counts for its illegal conduct leading to and after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, and was sentenced to pay $4 billion in criminal fines and penalties, the largest criminal resolution in U.S. history, Attorney General Holder announced today.

How did they clean up the BP oil spill 2010?

In the case of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, clean-up workers treated the oil with over 1.4 million gallons of various chemical dispersants. Typically such large amounts are sprayed over the open ocean from an airplane or helicopter. It’s possible that life in the deep sea was exposed to the dispersant-oil mixture.

What caused the oil to spread across the water?

Because most kinds of oil are less dense than water, most spilled oil floats on the water surface. It spreads out and is pushed across the water by wind and currents.

When did the oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico happen?

One month on from the 20 April explosion on the offshore drilling rig, the true scale of the environmental and economic destruction wrought by a gushing oil well in the Gulf of Mexico has yet to entirely unfold.

When did the Deepwater Horizon oil rig sank?

Fireboat response crews attempting to extinguish the blaze aboard the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, April 21, 2010. Debris and oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil rig after it sank on April 22, 2010.

When did BP cap the Macondo oil spill?

4 million barrels of oil flowed from the damaged Macondo well over an 87-day period, before it was finally capped on July 15, 2010. On December 15, 2010, the United States filed a complaint in District Court against BP Exploration & Production and several other defendants alleged to be responsible for the spill.

Why did BP Challenge the government’s oil spill estimate?

BP challenged the higher figure, saying that the government overestimated the volume. Internal emails released in 2013 showed that one BP employee had estimates that matched those of the FRTG, and shared the data with supervisors, but BP continued with their lower number.