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The Oil Spill

in the

Gulf of Mexico

All images on engineering attempts to control or stop the spill are copyright of BP plc.

Information up to June 17, 2010

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The Deepwater Horizon rig, built in 2001 by Hyundai Heavy Industries, was

120 meters long and 78 meters wide. It was a semisubmersible drilling

platform, with more than 120 crew aboard and it was located some 50 miles

southeast of the Mississippi Delta and contained an estimated 700,000 gallons

of #2 Fuel Oil or Marine Diesel Fuel for its own power generation.

Power supply to the Deepwater Horizon was generated using six Wartsila

18V32 diesel engines rated 9775 hp each, driving six ABB AMG generators

of 7000 kW at 11,000 volts AC.

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At approximately 10pm on Tuesday, April 20, an explosion rocked Transocean's

Deepwater Horizon drilling rig resulting in the loss of 11 crew members and the

sinking of the rig two days later.

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When the burning rig sank on April 22, so too did the pipe connecting the rig to

the 5,000-foot-deep (1,500-meter-deep) oil well. That bent, ruptured pipe is the

source of the thousands of barrels still spewing daily into the Gulf.

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Deepwater Horizon platform sank completely on April 22nd

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Attempts to control or stop the spill

After the accident, BP engineers have attempted a number of

techniques to control or stop the oil spill such as:

May 7 & 8 The Cofferdam Containment Dome

May 14 The Riser Insertion Tube

May 26 The Top Kill Heavy Mud Injection

June 3 (LMRP) Cap Containment System.

June 16 Connecting with hoses the BOP to the Q4000 .

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The Cofferdam containment dome

The first and fastest was to place a 125 tonne (280,000 lb) container dome

over the largest of the well leaks and pipe the oil to a storage vessel on the

surface.

This specially-built containment chamber, or "dome" on the sea floor with a

connection system called a riser to flow the leaking oil to the Discoverer

Enterprise drillship, the capacity to recover oil will go up to up to 15,000

barrels of oil per day.

BP deployed the system on May 78 but it failed when gas leaking from

the pipe combined with cold water to form methane hydrate crystals that

blocked up the steel canopy at the top of the dome.

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Preparations to deploy the Cofferdam from the supply ship via a crane

on the Helix Q4000 in the Gulf of Mexico. May 6, 2010

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The Riser Insertion Tube.- On May 14, engineers began the process ofpositioning a 4 inch (100 mm) wide riser insertion tube tool into the 21 inch (530 mm)

wide burst pipe. After three days, BP reported the tube was working. Collection rates

varied daily, the average being 2,000 barrels (84,000 US gallons) a day.

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The Top Kill option.

BP next tried to shut down the well completely using a technique called "top kill".

The process involves pumping heavy drilling fluids through two 3 inch (7.6 cm)

lines into the blowout preventer that sits on top of the wellhead. This would first

restrict the flow of oil from the well, which then could be sealed permanently with

cement.

The top kill procedure commenced on May 26.

On May 29, BP announced that the attempt to clog the ruptured oil well with

heavy mud failed.

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The (LMRP) Cap Containment System.

The next contingency option was the Lower Marine Riser Package (LMRP) Cap

Containment System.

The operational plan first involved cutting and then removing the damaged riser

from the top of the failed blowout preventer (BOP) to leave a cleanly-cut pipe at

the top of the BOP's LMRP.

The cap is designed to be connected to a riser from the Discoverer Enterprise

drillship and placed over the LMRP with the intention of capturing most of the oiland gas flowing from the well.

The cap was finally attached on June 3.

The amount of oil recovered by this cap was much more than expected and since

the maximum oil processing capacity of the Discoverer Enterprise Drillship is

10,000 barrels per day, the rest of the oil captured in the cap is being exhausted tothe ocean through the two venting nozzles available in the containment cap.

After this experience the total flow of the spill is estimated now to be between

25,000 to 40,000 barrels per day.

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Damaged riser cutting and removal

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LMRP Containment Cap Installation

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Connecting with hoses the BOP to the Q4000 Drilling Vessel

On June 16, BP announced today that oil and gas is flowing through a second

containment system attached to the Deepwater Horizon rigs failed blow out

preventer (BOP).

This system uses the hoses and manifold that were deployed for the top kill

operation to take oil and gas from the failed Deepwater Horizon blow-out

preventer (BOP) through a separate riser to the Q4000 vessel on the surface, in

addition to the LMRP cap system. The Q4000 uses a specialized clean-burningsystem to flare oil and gas captured by this second system.

This system is intended to increase the overall efficiency of the containment

operation by possibly increasing the amount of oil and gas that can be captured

from the well. Operations continue to stabilize and optimize the performance of

this second containment system.

Neither the new capture system nor the LMRP containment cap system has

ever before been deployed at these depths and conditions, and their efficiency

and ability to contain the oil and gas cannot be assured.(BP plc)

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Direct Connect with hoses from the BOP to the Q4000 Drill Vessel

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Relief Wells The Long term Solution

Admiral Thad W. Allen, the Coast Guard commander, said that the only solutionto the problem would be the successful completion of relief wells to finally stop

the flow from the bottom of the 18,000-foot-deep well, a job that will not be

completed until August at the earliest.

BP crews have begun to drill two relief wells in the Gulf of Mexico to stem the

flow from the MC252 well.

A drilling rig drills a relief well or second well to intersect the original, flowing well

as deeply as possible. A specialized heavy liquid is then pumped into the flowing

well to bring it under control. This liquid is denser than oil and so exerts pressure

(known as hydrostatic pressure) to stem the flow of oil. Once the flow is

stopped, the well can be returned to a safe condition.

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Estimates of oil spilled through June 17th

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Environmental Damage on the Louisiana Coast

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AVM 200610