Bp Oil Spill

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Written by Ash Mathew. The BP oil spill, or also referred to as the BP oil disaster, is a historical oil spill that occurred in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20th 2010. An oilrig, Deepwater Horizon, owned by Transocean and leased out to BP had burst into flames because of a gas. The explosion killed 11 men on the rig and severely injured several more. Month of April Deepwater Horizon was a 9-year old drilling unit that was owned by Transocean, a drilling contractor. BP leased the unit out on March 2008 for testing purposes in the Gulf of Mexico. On the 20th of April, a gas leak from the oil well, which was being drilled, rose up the drilling component and ignited and exploded on the platform of the oilrig. Most of the workers were saved by lifeboats or airlifted by helicopters before the fire engulfed the majority of the platform. 11 workers were never found however, even with the search efforts, and were presumed dead. The oilrig burned till April 22nd, when it sunk to the bottom of the gulf. On April 24th, oil is found leaking from the well, this came as a shock to many experts on the matter and further research using underwater cameras showed that the well was spewing out an estimated amount of 1,000 barrels of oil per day. It was only now that the engineers came to know that the valve mechanism, the blowout preventer, which is intended to stop the flow of the crude oil from the well, had failed to activate. As the days progressed, more shocking news reached the US coastguard, who have reported that the oil spill rate is around 5,000 barrels per day. With this information, the US coastguard agreed to create controlled fires to reduce and slow the spread of the oil, desperately trying to prevent the crude oil from reaching the shores of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida. Early attempts from BP to stop the flow of the oil from the leaks had
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