Deepwater Horizon oil spill Deepwater Horizon oil spill The "Deepwater Horizon" oil spill (also referred to as the BP oil spill/leak, the BP oil disaster, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, and the Macondo blowout) is an industrial disaster that began on 20 April 2010, in the Gulf of Mexico on the BP-operated Macondo Prospect, considered to be the largest marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry and estimated to be 8% to 31% larger in volume than the previous largest, the Ixtoc I oil spill. The U.S. government estimated the total discharge at . After several failed efforts to contain
BP as a section of the company's website where it communicated its efforts to clean up the spill. BP began a re-branding campaign in late 2010, and decided to focus its brand on the idea of "bringing brilliant minds together with technology at a massive scale to meet the world's energy needs", and focus its messaging on telling stories about people. In February 2012 BP North America launched a $500 million branding campaign to rebuild its brand. The company's advertising budget was about $5 million per week during the four-month spill in the Gulf of Mexico, totaling nearly $100 million. In