De kan sikkert huske den tragiske eksplosion på oliboreplatformen Deepwater Horizon den 20. april, der dræbte 11 borearbejdre og det efterfølgende oliespil, der først blev stoppet klondykestyle 15 juli.

The NIC assembled a number of inter-agency expert scientific teams to estimate the quantity of BP Deepwater Horizon oil that has been released from the well and the fate of that oil. One team, led by Energy Secretary Steven Chu and United States Geological Survey (USGS) Director Marcia McNutt, calculated the flow rate and total oil released. This team announced on August 2, 2010, that an estimated total of 4.9 million barrels of oil had been released from the BP Deepwater Horizon well.

A second team, led by the Department of the Interior (DOI) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) developed a tool called the Oil Budget Calculator to determine what happened to the oil. Using the 4.9 million barrel estimate as its input, along with both direct measurements and scientific estimates, the OBC calculated what happened to the spilled oil. It was found that almost three quarters of the oil spilled by the Deepwater Horizon accident has vanished from the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

About 45% of the oil either evaporated, dispersed naturally or was burned at the well head. Another 26%, nearly 53 million gallons, of the oil is still in the water or onshore in a form that could, possibly, cause further ecological damage. The remaining oil—around five times the amount spilled in 1989 by the Exxon Valdez—remains a threat to sea life and Gulf Coast marshes, said Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. But the spill no longer poses a threat to the Florida Keys or the East Coast, according to the report by NOAA and the Interior Department. The implication of the report, which claimed that most of the oil that leaked into the gulf could be accounted for, was that future damage might be less than had been feared.

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