Volume and extent of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill Volume and extent of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill The "Deepwater Horizon" oil spill was discovered on the afternoon of 22 April 2010 when a large oil slick began to spread at the former rig site. According to the Flow Rate Technical Group, the leak amounted to about of oil, exceeding the 1989 "Exxon Valdez" oil spill as the largest ever to originate in U.S.-controlled waters and the 1979 Ixtoc I oil spill as the largest spill in the Gulf of Mexico. BP has challenged this calculation saying that it is overestimated as it includes over of oil which was
Rayong oil spill study found that Corexit increases the toxicity of oil by 52 times. It can remain in the ecological food chain for many years and cause widespread and long-lasting health impacts." Official reports said of oil were spilled, but critics of the oil company and the government say that the spill was much larger and warned of health risks posed both by the spill and by the chemicals being used to disperse the oil. A higher estimate of the oil spill has been performed by Somporn Chuai-aree of Prince Songkhla University: "as low as or as high as ". This estimate