Macondo BOP raised from seafloor for analysis

Macondo BOP raised from seafloor for analysis 

The blowout preventer that failed to stop the flow of oil at BP’s Macondo well in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico has been successfully retrieved from the seafloor and is in US Department of Justice custody, according to a statement from BP. The BOP from the sunken Deepwater Horizon semisubmersible rig is expected to be analyzed at a National Aeronautics and Space Administration facility in Louisiana, but as of Monday, the Justice Department would not comment on whether the BOP was headed to shore, according to an Associated Press story. The 50-ft-tall, 300-ton device was successfully removed from the Macondo well by the Helix-operated Q4000 intervention vessel on Sept. 3, after the drillship Discoverer Enterprise removed the BOP’s capping stack the previous day. The BOP was lifted to surface Sept. 4, and was taken into custody by the Justice Department as evidence in its ongoing investigation into the incident. Following the Deepwater Horizon BOP’s removal, the Development Driller II rig successfully installed a new BOP on top of the well.