A short slideshow to teach about what went wrong and how they tried to stop the leak. Made for 6-8 graders

1. Deepwater Horizon Spill
April 20, 2010-July 15, 2010

2. How did the spill start?
An explosion occurred on April 20, 2010.
Two days later, the Deepwater Horizon sank in
about 5000 ft. of water.
The well continued to gush oil for 86 days.

3. Let’s look at what
caused the explosion:
The Deepwater Horizon Accident Investigation report by BP
indicated problems with:
the cementing of the well
inaccurate safety tests
faulty sensors that were supposed to detect
hydrocarbons
gas venting into the oil rig
the safety system to prevent fire and gas from igniting
the failure of the blow-out preventer

4. What’s supposed to happen in an
emergency?
1) In a blowout, a rig worker
presses an emergency button.
A signal is sent from the rig to
one of the control pods.
2) The control pod directs
hydraulic fluid from the rig
into pressurized canisters
called accumulators through
a valve...
3) ..called a shuttle valve,
and into the blind shear ram.
4) The blind shear ram cuts
through the drill pipe and
seals the well, preventing oil
from gushing out.

5. ANIMATION

6. About 5 million barrels of
oil were released from the
Macondo well

7. 4.2 million barrels poured
into the Gulf of Mexico

8. What did they do to
stop it?

9. Efforts to Stop the Leak
April 25: Repair the blowout
preventer--Failed.
April 30: Use a chemical
dispersant which is usually
used on the surface- inject
it under the surface to break
apart the oil--EPA told them
to use something less toxic
May 2-16: Drill two Relief
Wells to divert some of the
pressure and oil

10. MAY 7-LOWER A
CONTAINMENT DOME TO
GRAB THE OIL--FAILED
--THE DOME WAS
ABANDONED WHEN IT
GOT PLUGGED BY ICE
AND GAS
LIVE VIDEO

11. Top kill and
Junk Shot
May 26: The Top Kill method
involves pumping massive
amounts of drilling mud hoping
that the weight of the fluid will
plug up the well.
The Junk shot involves
injecting items including golf
balls and pieces of rubber into
the blowout preventer.
FAILED! ANIMATION

12. Capping
the Well
There were multiple attempts
to cap the well. The one on
the right shows one version
with placed onto of the
blowout preventer. Methanol
was injected into to prevent
ice from forming but oil
continued to rise from the
vents on the side. (June 3)

13. The better
cap
A SECOND ATTEMPT TO
CAP THE WELL
This cap has similar parts to a blowout preventer. It has rams
or valves designed to seal when the cap is in place and the flow
has slowed down enough.

14. What’s happening with all of the oil
when they’re trying to cap it?
Production rigs collect
whatever oil they can
from different pipes
and risers that have
been put in place.
Overall, they only
recover 800,000
barrels compared to
the total 5 million
barrels spilled.

15. On July 15, the newest cap
stops the flow for the 1st
time in 86 days.
VIDEO

16. STATIC
KILL and
BOTTOM
KILL
Aug 3: STATIC KILL- similar to
the Top Kill technique but
considered “static” because the
flow has stopped
Sept. 21: BOTTOM KILL- using a
relief well, cement is pumped
into the space between the pipe
and the rock, as the well itself

18. On Sept. 19, the well was
declared “effectively dead” by
the US government.