Summary

The effort to contain and control the blow-out of the Macondo well was unprecedented. From April 20, 2010, the day the well blew out, until 19 September 2010, when the government finally declared it "dead", BP expended enormous resources to develop and deploy new technologies that eventually captured a substantial amount of oil at the source and, after 87 days, stopped the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. BP had to construct novel devices, and the government had to mobilize personnel on the fly, because neither was ready for a disaster of this nature in deep water. This book examines the efforts to "kill the spill" after the Deepwater Horizon explosion, wherein BP was able to design, build, and use new containment technologies, while the federal government was able to develop effective oversight capacity.