BP scandal
"BP scandal" is one of the best biggest corporate scandals of recent times. The Deepwater Horizon rig, owned and operated by Transocean and leased by BP, was located in the Macondo oil potential in the Mississippi Canyon, a valley on the continental shelf. The oil well was placed 4,993 feet (1,522 metres) below the surface on the seabed and extended nearly 18,000 feet (5,486 metres) into the rock. A surge of natural gas blasted through a concrete core recently installed by contractor Halliburton in order to seal the well for later use on the night of April 20. Wikileaks documents later revealed that a similar incident occurred on a BP-owned rig in the Caspian Sea in September 2008. Because they were made of a concrete combination that employed nitrogen gas to expedite curing, both cores were likely too weak to handle the pressure.
The natural gas was released by the core fracture and went up the Deepwater rig's riser to the platform, where it ignited, killing 11 employees and injured 17. On the morning of April 22, the rig capsized and sank, rupturing the riser through which drilling mud had been poured to offset the upward pressure of oil and natural gas. Without any opposition, oil began to spill into the Gulf. The volume of oil exiting the damaged well—originally estimated by BP to be around 1,000 barrels per day—was considered to have peaked at more than 60,000 barrels per day by US government authorities.
BP attempted to activate the rig's blowout preventer (BOP), a fail-safe mechanism designed to stop the oil-drawing duct, but the equipment failed. The following year, forensic study of the BOP revealed that a set of huge blades known as blind shear rams—designed to slice through the pipe carrying oil—had malfunctioned due to the pipe bending under the pressure of the rising gas and oil. (According to a 2014 report by the United States Chemical Safety Board, the blind shear rams activated sooner than previously assumed and may have ruptured the pipe.)
Date: April 20, 2010 – September 19, 2010
Location: Gulf of Mexico
