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
Xingang Port oil spill at the port began, triggering a fire which subsequently burned for 15 hours. The fire burned from oil that was released from a filled storage tank with a 90,000 ton capacity that collapsed as a result of the fire. Oil from other nearby tanks was, according to a Greenpeace report released several weeks after the incident, intentionally released to prevent the fire from expanding towards a tank containing dimethylbenzene, a flammable chemical. Although Chinese government officials reported that as little as 1,500 tonnes of oil spilled, a former University of Alaska marine conservation specialist, Rick Steiner, estimates the spill to