Engineering Disaster: Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

This report has been written with the intention of broadening your knowledge of a specific Engineering Disaster. The chosen Engineering Disaster is the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill which occurred on the 10th of April 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico. The purpose of our report is to achieve a better understanding of the Oil and Gas Industry, the potential for disasters to arise and the effects of these disasters when they occur. Using personal accounts, the internet and written sources, we will first explain why there is a demand for oil and gas in modern day society. This is imperative as the reason why oil is needed, could be considered the underlying reason behind why these oil related disasters occur. Later we will then define oil and gas and

However the first successful oil well was not drilled until August 28th 1859, on a small farm in Titusville, Pennsylvania, by Edwin Drake and George Bissell who drilled the well to a depth of 69.5 feet (21.2 m), striking oil and starting a revolution. Since their discovery oil has become the “Lifeblood of industrialised nations, Oil has become the world's most important source of energy” (Ukogplc.com, 2017). Oil based products make up 90% of everything we use on a daily basis. Crude oil comes straight from the ground, where through many different processes it is turned into petroleum, which is the base of many common commodities we frequently rely on.the power that drives oil and gas exploration and the reason oil and gas is extracted can be simply narrowed down to, money, financial gain, corporate greed and the power of oil as a

Oil is a fossil fuel that has been formed from a large amount of tiny plants and animals such as algae and zooplankton. These organisms fall to the bottom of the sea after death and over time, get trapped under multiple layers of sand and mud (croftsystems.net, 2015). As they became buried ever deeper, the heat and pressures acting on them began to increase. The amount of pressure and the degree of heat, along with the type of biomass, determined if the material became oil or natural gas. More heat produced lighter oil. While even higher temperatures or biomass made predominantly of plant material produced natural gas (Adventuresinenergy.org, 2017). Once both the oil and natural gas is formed, it seeps through pores in the rock until it becomes trapped under a layer of impermeable cap rock and clay (croftsystems.net, 2015). The layer does not allow the oil to pass through, the oil will begin to pool and form a reservoir. The oil will then sit dormant for millions of years until human technology locates its position and begin the extraction