At Last: BP Raises Blowout Preventer

Key piece of evidence should tell feds what went wrong

By Polly Davis Doig, Newser Staff

Posted Sep 4, 2010 6:13 AM CDT

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At Last: BP Raises Blowout Preventer — The Deepwater Horizon Blowout Preventer. The manufacturer of a fail-safe device on the oil well that spewed crude into the Gulf of Mexico has $500 million in liability insurance. (AP Photo/Deepwater Horizon Response Unified Command)

BP is slowly raising from the depths of the Gulf the blowout preventer that, well, failed to prevent a blowout at its infamous Macondo well. The 50-foot, 300-ton device is on a delicate mile-long trip to the surface that will place it in the hands of federal investigators eager to figure out why it failed, reports the AP. BP says it detached the blowout preventer yesterday afternoon after successfully placing another blowout preventer on the wellhead.

The blowout preventer is a key piece of evidence in a case that involves hundreds of lawsuits so far, and officials hope an examination of it will give clues into the mystery of why it failed to seal off the wellhead when it blew. BP put a new blowout preventer on the well to handle any pressure caused by the relief well it's digging, which will intersect with the Macondo well at some point after the holiday.
(More Gulf oil spill stories.)

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