A huge explosion on BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 people on the night of 20 April 2010. Rescue efforts initially focused on saving the surviving 115 workers from the burning platform, about 50 miles from the coast. As the platform, collapsed into the sea, the environmental cost started to become clear as with reports of vast amounts of crude oil gushing from the broken well head

ATTEMPTS TO ACTIVATE THE BOP SEALING DEVICES WITH ROVs

8 - 18 MAY: CONTAINER DOME AND TOP HAT- FAILED Underwater efforts to cap oil leak Initially, BP tried to lower a 125-tonne, 18-metre (59 feet) high container dome over the main leak on the sea floor. However, this failed when gas leaking from the pipe mixed with water to form hydrates, ice-like crystals, that blocked up the steel canopy. Instead, engineers have lowered a smaller device onto the site. Dubbed the Top hat, it will sit over the tear in the pipe and partially stop the leak. To prevent the build up of hydrates, methanol is pumped into the top hat to disperse the water and gas.

2 JUNE: LOWER MARINE RISER PACKAGE Attempt to cap oil leak First, the damaged riser - the pipe which takes oil from the well - was cut where it nears the seabed using a remotely-operated shear. This was completed at 1930 CDT on 1 June (0030 GMT 2 June). The latest stage in BP's efforts to contain leaking oil has involved lowering a cap onto the failed blowout preventer (BOP) valve system on the seabed. The cap sits on the BOP's lower marine riser package (LMRP) section.

2 JUNE: LOWER MARINE RISER PACKAGE - Continued After removing the pipe, the cap was lowered onto the LMRP enabling the leaking oil and gas to be funnelled to a drill ship on the surface. Latest estimates suggest more than half of the leaking oil is now being captured. The next stage was for a diamond wire cutter to saw through the riser close to the LMRP. The blade got stuck and had to be removed but BP eventually cut through the pipe using giant shears manipulated by undersea robots (ROV).

Deputy Secretary Jane Holl Lute with the Department of Homeland Security tours the Mobile, Alabama Command Center on May 20

In total, over 2500 are working on the response operation

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The damaged Macondo BOP, along with the lower marine riser package (LMRP) cap, have been removed from the Gulf of Mexico. Considered evidence in a Justice Dept. investigation, the entire package was moved to a secure onshore storage area for inspection. The BOP from the Deepwater Horizon heads up the Mississippi River in route to a NASA facility in Michoud, Louisiana, on Sept. 11, 2010

MACONDO WELL PLUGGED FOR GOOD The drawn out, tragic case of the Macondo blowout ended rather anticlimactically on Sept. 19 with the successful testing of cement plugs pumped into it from a nearby relief well. The relief effort intercepted the well’s casing near the producing formation at some 5, 486 m below the sea floor. In reality, no oil had escaped from the damaged well since July 15, thanks to installation of a “capping stack” – a temporary flow control mechanism But the September relief well test marked the conclusion of a nearly six-month battle to finally kill the source of a variously estimated flow of up to 60,000 b/d of crude oil that for several months fouled miles of Gulf Coast beaches from Louisiana eastward into Florida.

NEW REGULATIONS FOR THE GoM The existing Gom Regulator – the Minerals Management Services (MMS) was replaced by several new organisations. 1. The newly created Office of Natural Resources Revenue (ONRR) and a future organization that will control offshore leasing. 2. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Management (BOEMRE) Also new regulations that Deepwater Drilling plans have to be approved and validated by third party groups.

BOEMRE has issued a number of new rules and regulations aimed at bringing the offshore industry under tighter controls. Included among them are: The Drilling Safety Rule, which prescribes tighter cementing and casing practices and the use of drilling fluids for maintaining well bore integrity. It also stiffens oversight of BOPs and their components, including shear and pipe rams. Operators also must secure independent reviews of well designs, construction and flow intervention processes. The Workplace Safety Rule, which requires operators to have a comprehensive Safety and Environmental Management System (SEMS) in order to reduce human and organizational errors as root causes of work-related accidents and offshore spills. It makes the previously voluntary API Recommended Practice 75 mandatory to identify, address, and manage safety hazards and environmental impacts in operators’ operations. BOEMRE on Nov. 8 issued a “Notice to Lessees” that asserts that each operator seeking to drill deepwater wells must submit a statement signed by an authorized company official that affirms that the company has complied with all regulations, including the Drilling Safety Rule.

The National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling investigation report was released to the public today. While Halliburton says it continues to examine the report, it does disagree with some of the findings it has seen. In short, the report made the following conclusions: 1. The event could have been prevented. 2. It was caused by mistakes made by BP, Halliburton, and Transocean and shows that the safety culture of the industry is in doubt. 3. Deepwater exploration and production have risks for which neither the government nor industry is prepared. 4. Fundamental reform is needed to assure human safety and environmental protection. Regulatory oversight of leasing, energy exploration, and production needs reform in both structure and decision making. 5. Technology, laws and regulations, and practices for containing, responding to, and cleaning up spills lags behind the risk of deepwater drilling. Government must close the gap and industry must support rather than resist the effort. 6. Scientific understanding of environmental conditions in sensitive environments is inadequate. A complete version of the report is available at http://www.oilspillcommission.gov/.