Deepwater Horizon Essay

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The Deepwater Horizon was a 10 years old off shore semi-submersible drilling rig that is capable of working in water depths of up to 3,048 m. The Deepwater Horizon was built by Hyundai Heavy Industries in South Korea in 2001 and is owned by Transocean Ltd., the world’s largest offshore drilling contractor and also the leading provider of drilling management services worldwide. Transocean owns a fleet of 135 mobile offshore drilling units and 8 ultra - deep water new build units. The company’s fleet is considered one of the most modern and versatile in the world due to its emphasis on technically demanding segments of the offshore drilling business (Transocean, 2009). The rig was under lease to British Petroleum (BP) from March 2008 until September …show more content…

The Macondo prospect well is situated on Mississippi Canyon block 252 (MC 252), offshore Louisiana, Gulf of Mexico, USA. The estimated oil in place is approximately 50 million barrels (~6.8×106 t). On 7 October 2009 the Transocean Marianas semi-submersible rig commenced drilling, but operations were halted at 1,226 m below the sea floor on 29 November 2009, when the rig was damaged by Hurricane Ida. The Transocean Deepwater Horizon rig resumed drilling operations in February 2010. The platform commenced drilling in February 2010 at a water depth of approximately 1,500 m. The planned well was to be drilled to 5,600 m below sea level, and was to be plugged and abandoned for subsequent completion as a subsea producer. Production casing was being run and cemented at the time of the accident. Once the cementing was complete, it was due to be tested for integrity and a cement plug set to temporarily abandon the well. Deepwater Horizon caught fire when it was drilling at Macondo in April 2010. The high-pressure oil and gas surge up the pipe from the sea floor to the rig and caused a big explosion that kept the rig burning for 3 days. The rig sank into water after the accident and is currently lying over the sea floor, around 1,500ft northwest of the well center and away from subsea