BP’s Fight Against Pollution From Deepwater Gulf Blowout

The eyes of the world continue to be focused on the U.S. Gulf of Mexico as BP mobilizes its full resources to stop the flow of oil and fight the oil spill, which follows the blowout and sinking of the Transocean Deepwater Horizon drilling rig operating in Mississippi Canyon 252 block.

The initial incident occurred on April 20 when the Deepwater Horizon, under contract to BP and located 41 miles off the Louisiana coast, experienced an explosion and fire while drilling an exploratory well. The rig ultimately sank, claiming the lives of 11 men who are still missing and assumed dead. The explosion also injured 17 others.

"Losing 11 of our industry colleagues is a tragedy for the offshore community," said BP Group Chief Executive Tony Hayward. "As an industry, we must participate fully in these investigations and not rest until the causes of this tragedy are known and measures are taken to see that it never happens again."

Following the explosion and fire, it became clear that the blowout preventer on the seabed had failed, causing oil to leak into the water at a rate of about 5,000 Bpd.

Intense Scrutiny
The Department of the Interior and Department of Homeland Security quickly began conducting a joint enquiry into the explosion and sinking of the Transocean Deepwater Horizon. The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations and Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources have begun conducting investigations.

BP has also launched its own investigation into the incident and has assembled a team in Houston which includes industry experts from Exxon, Shell, Chevron and Anadarko, service firms and government agencies who are working to stem the flow of oil from the sub-sea well and contain the spill offshore to protect the shoreline along the Gulf Coast from Louisiana to Florida.

Cleanup Efforts
BP began ramping up preparations for a major protection and cleaning effort on the shorelines off Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida on April 30. To supplement its Houma, LA incident command post, which oversees the offshore containment effort and onshore response in Louisiana, BP established a similar onshore incident command post in Mobile, AL to oversee the onshore response in Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.

Each of the states has oil spill response plans already in place and trained community groups and volunteers available to aid in the response to the oil spill and deploy resources.

"We are doing absolutely everything in our power to eliminate the source of the leak and contain the environmental impact of the spill,” Hayward said. “We are determined to fight this spill on all fronts,
In the deep waters of the Gulf, in the shallow waters and, should it be necessary, on the shore,"

BP and the armada fighting the spill have faced many agonizing delays caused by bad weather and problems attributed to “equipment malfunctions” that have prevented crews from stopping the oil flow.

In early May, BP announced it was relying on a variety of options for stopping the leak. According to BP press reports, on May 2, a drilling rig began a relief well. The new well, in 5,000 feet of water, is planned to intercept the existing well around 13,000 feet below the seabed and permanently seal it. The new drill site is about half a mile from the leaking well in Mississippi Canyon block 252, and drilling is estimated to take three months.