Yesterday BP says it collected 27, 000 barrels of oil from the Deepwater Horizon blowout, up from 26, 000 on Monday.
After this snafu, how much oil, then, is the blowout now pouring into the gulf?
It didn't start with the BP blowout, but the oil has made matters worse, killing marsh grasses and other front-line vegetation that helps to hold our precious wetlands in place.
Washington (CNN) -- The public may have seen the last video images of the failed blowout preventer from the BP oil well disaster, as authorities expressed possible security concerns.
CNN: Public may not see failed blowout preventer from BP oil well
The trial will determine the causes of the spill, and assign responsibility to the parties involved, including BP, Halliburton, Transocean, and Cameron, which manufactured the blowout preventer meant to stop oil leaks.
More hazardous still were fires out on oil platforms, such as the Bravo blowout in the North Sea in 1977 and the Piper Alpha disaster, off Aberdeen, in 1988, where the capping of the well had to be done in the face of mountainous seas.
For years before Deepwater Horizon the oil industry planned on the basis that the blowout preventers on top of wells would live up to their name.
The remote-controlled submarines are being used by BP in an attempt to activate the well's blowout preventer to choke the flow of oil.
Then in 2012 Shell faced permitting delays on its Arctic Challenger barge, which is to meant to help capture oil in the event of a Deepwater Horizon-style blowout.
FORBES: Why Shell Should Just Quit Its Alaska Drilling Fiasco
As a prelude to permanently shutting down the well, crews are trying to withdraw drill pipe hanging below the bottom of the blowout preventer and remove it from the well, so they can then remove the capping stack that's kept oil from leaking since July 15 and replace the old blowout preventer with a new one.
BP, which had been leasing the rig from Transocean, says the safety device that was supposed to cut oil flow on the ocean floor in the event of a well blowout did not perform its function.
Transocean ( RIG - news - people ), says the safety device that was supposed to cut oil flow on the ocean floor in the event of a well blowout did not perform its function.
At these depths, everything must be done with remote-control robots that install the blowout preventers, submersible pumps and other devices to manage the flow of oil and water on the ocean floor.
Obviously that would complicate -- be a very complicated situation to deal with because, again, you could have oil coming from a lot of different, or several different places that don't have blowout preventers on top of them -- right?
At that depth, a key piece of equipment is the blowout preventer, which weighs up to 300 tons and caps the well, holding back ultrapressurized oil deep in the Earth.
The goal of the hearings is to examine the design and performance of the drilling rig's blowout preventer, a mammoth set of valves that is the last line of defense against an oil spill.
The blowout on that drilling rig killed 11 and led to the spilling of more than 4 million barrels of oil into the Gulf.
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