By Russell Gold
Federal investigators probing the 2010 Deepwater Horizon
disaster say a critical piece of safety equipment may have helped
trigger the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.
The report by the Chemical Safety Board, an independent
investigative arm of the federal government, raises new questions
about the effectiveness of blowout preventers, giant sets of valves
that are supposed to seal off an oil well in an emergency.
The draft report, set to be released Thursday afternoon,
concludes that the pipe running from the subsea oil well to the
drilling rig through the blowout preventer, or BOP, buckled shortly
after a surge of natural gas from the well ignited, causing an
explosion that killed 11 crew members.
The pipe was damaged in such a way that the blowout preventer
couldn't cut it and seal it off, the board said. Instead, the
blowout preventer punctured the pipe, allowing oil to start flowing
into the Gulf of Mexico. The buckling occurred because of big
differences in pressure inside and outside the pipe, which ran
through about 5,000 feet of water.
This situation wasn't unique to the Deepwater Horizon and could
occur at other drilling sites, investigators warned.
(More to come.)
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