When you are drilling for oil in the ocean, safety is very, very important. Here’s where the subsea blowout preventer comes in. This special gear is, in effect, the Superman that prevents oil spills from happening far below the surface of the water.
Subsea blowout preventers are not dumb iron — simple machines that don’t do much and don’t go wrong; they contain a great deal of technology to ensure they work properly. They can shut down the well when pressure gets too high, preventing oil and gas from spewing out uncontrolled.
Think about if you’re drilling for oil and pressure suddenly spikes. That’s the moment when the subsea blowout preventer kicks in fast. It relies on powerful hydraulics to shut the well down and ensure no oil leaks into the ocean. This sort of speed prevents huge oil spills that can harm sea life and the environment.
A subsea blowout preventer is not something so easy to use, especially on rough ocean floors. These devices are deep underwater — where the pressure is strong, and it is difficult to see. And they require skilled workers to care for them and to ensure everyone is safe during the drilling process.
With technology, so goes the subsea blowout preventer. Engineers are working all the time to try and make these things safer and elsewhere even more reliable. One new thing now, like real-time monitoring systems and redundancy plans, are being added, are just to make sure that an oil spill can never happen again, no matter what the circumstances are.