contextual overview of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill recovery area showing both sea surface and subsea. Scale has been distorted for clarity, and only the main equipment is shown.
<p>At the centre is a subsea blowout preventer stack installed on the seabed with a riser insertion tube in place to its left and kill and choke lines connected to a top kill mud manifold to its right. Relief wells 1 and 2 are shown at the extreme right and left, each drilling down to meet the blown centre well.
Legend:
</p>
<ul><li>red represents the blowout preventer stack</li>
<li>grey represents the oil flow passage</li>
<li>white tubing represents the kill (left) and choke (right) lines</li>
<li>brown represents the top of the subsea well casing</li>
<li>the five grey rectangles within the lower red shape represent ram-type blowout preventers</li>
<li>the two grey rectangles within the upper red shape represent annular-type blowout preventers</li>
<li>the orange pipes are flexible hoses connected to various rigid pipes</li></ul>
<a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:84user" title="User:84user">User:84user</a>
2010-05-27
<p>Own illustration, created with approximate reference to the following sources:
</p>
<ul><li><a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://www.offshore-mag.com/index/article-display/323550/articles/offshore/equipment-engineering/us-gulf-of-mexico/cameron-wins-evo-subsea-bop-stack-contract.html">http://www.offshore-mag.com/index/article-display/323550/articles/offshore/equipment-engineering/us-gulf-of-mexico/cameron-wins-evo-subsea-bop-stack-contract.html</a></li>
<li>BP technical briefing linked at <a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://www.offshore-mag.com/index/article-display/5210928327/articles/offshore/deepwater-horizon/deepwater-horizon14.html">http://www.offshore-mag.com/index/article-display/5210928327/articles/offshore/deepwater-horizon/deepwater-horizon14.html</a></li>
<li>Kent Wells technical update video linked at <a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://bp.concerts.com/gom/kentwells_update24052010.htm">http://bp.concerts.com/gom/kentwells_update24052010.htm</a>, especially the illustration at time 6:54</li>
<li>BBC diagram at <a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/us_and_canada/10159626.stm">http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/us_and_canada/10159626.stm</a></li>
<li>Economist diagram at <a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://media.economist.com/images/images-magazine/2010/21/ST/201021STC294.gif">http://media.economist.com/images/images-magazine/2010/21/ST/201021STC294.gif</a></li></ul>
Using <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Inkscape" title="Inkscape">Inkscape</a> 0.47.