The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is a massive ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that started on April 20, 2010. The spill was the result of an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig, operating off the coast of Louisiana, that caused an explosion and fire that sank the rig. Eleven rig workers are currently missing and presumed dead; the explosion also injured 17 others. The oil spill covers a surface area of at least 2,500 square miles (6,500 km2) according to estimates reported on May 3, 2010 by CNBC. The oil spill, originating from a deepwater oil well 5,000 feet (1,500 m) below sea level, is currently discharging an estimated 5–25 thousand barrels (210,000–1,100,000 US gallons; 790,000–4,000,000 litres) of crude oil daily. The spill is expected to eclipse the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill as the worst US oil disaster in history. Experts fear that it will result in an environmental disaster as the oil from the well site reaches the Gulf coast, damaging the Gulf of Mexico fishing industry, tourism industry, and habitat of hundreds of bird species. BP was principal developer of the oil field and leased the oil rig from Transocean Ltd. The U.S. Government has named BP as the responsible party in the incident and will hold the company accountable for all cleanup costs resulting from the oil spill. BP has accepted responsibility for the oil spill and the cleanup costs but indicated that the accident was not their fault and the rig was run by Transocean personnel. The Deepwater Horizon was a fifth generation, ultra-deepwater, dynamically positioned, column-stabilized, semi-submersible mobile offshore drilling unit (MODU), a floating drilling rig bearing the Marshall Islands flag. The rig was 396 feet (121 m) long and 256 feet (78 m) wide and could operate in waters up to 8,000 feet (2,400 m) deep, to a maximum drill depth of 30,000 feet (9,100 m). Built by Hyundai Heavy Industries in South Korea and completed in 2001, the rig was owned by Transocean Ltd. and leased to BP until September 2013. At the time of the explosion, the rig was on BP's Mississippi Canyon Block 252, referred to as the Macondo Prospect, in the United States sector of the Gulf of Mexico, about 41 miles (66 km) off the Louisiana coast. Adrian Rose, a vice president of Transocean, Ltd., said workers had been performing their standard routines with "no indication of any problems" just prior to the explosion. According to a Transocean spokesperson, at the time of the explosion the rig was drilling but was not in production. Production casing was being run and cemented at the time of the accident. Once the cementing was complete, it was due to be tested for integrity and a cement plug set to temporarily abandon the well for later completion as a subsea producer. Halliburton has confirmed that it cemented the Macondo well but never set a cement plug to cap the bore as "operations had not reached a stage where a final plug was needed". Halliburton said that it had finished cementing 20 hours before the fire. According to Transocean executive Adrian Rose, "undoubtedly abnormal pressure" had accumulated inside the marine riser and as it came up it "expanded rapidly and ignited", an event known as a blowout.

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