Oil Spill – The Deepwater Horizon Disaster

Discoverer Enterprise drillship 5,000ft from surface to the seabed 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons) a day are leaking into the Gulf ITHE FUNNEL: Three remotely- controlled robots operated from surface ship will delicately guide funnel onto the well-head 40ft IThe long-term solution: Drilling a relief well to tap into the leaking well and take the oil - will take two to three months. IRiser pipe: This mile long pipe is fractured in three places Hydraulic rams I Blowout preventer: Designed to close the oil pipe in the event of a leak. Originally reported to have worked 13,000ft from the seabed to the oil reservoir Carrier pipe: A 21 inch wide it has the six inch drilling pipe inside I BP was hoping for between 50million and 75million barrels of oil from the 'Mississippi Canyon', a massive reservoir believed to hold 15billon barrels. Words by Fiona MacRae Graphic by John Lawson