Macondo Prospect
| Macondo field | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Country | United States |
| Region | Gulf of Mexico |
| Location | Mississippi Canyon |
| Block | 252 |
| Offshore/onshore | offshore |
| Coordinates | 28°44′12″N 88°23′13″W / 28.736667°N 88.386944°WCoordinates: 28°44′12″N 88°23′13″W / 28.736667°N 88.386944°W |
| Operator | BP |
| Partners |
BP (90%) MOEX Offshore 2007 (10%) |
| Field history | |
| Discovery | 2010 |
| Production | |
| Estimated oil in place | 50 million barrels (~6.8×106 t) |
The Macondo Prospect (Mississippi Canyon Block 252, abbreviated MC252) is an oil and gas prospect in the United States Exclusive Economic Zone of the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Louisiana. The prospect was the site of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion in April 2010 that led to a major oil spill in the region.
Oil companies routinely assign code names to offshore prospects early in the exploration effort. This practice helps ensure secrecy during the confidential pre-sale phase, and later provides convenient names for casual reference rather than the often similar-sounding official lease names denoted by, for example, the Minerals Management Service in the case of federal waters in the USA. Names in a given year or area might follow a theme such as beverages (e.g., Cognac), heavenly bodies (e.g., Mars), or even cartoon characters (e.g., Bullwinkle), but usually have no geological or geographical significance to the prospect itself.
The name Macondo had been the winning selection in a BP employee contest as part of an internal United Way campaign. It comes from the fictitious cursed town in the novel One Hundred Years of Solitude by Colombian Nobel Prize-winning writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
The prospect is located in Mississippi Canyon Block 252 of the Gulf of Mexico. BP is the operator and principal developer of the oil field with 90% of interest, the final 10% by MOEX Offshore 2007, a unit of Mitsui. Originally, Anadarko Petroleum Corporation owned 25% stake but in October 2011 this was transferred to BP as a part of a wider settlement between the companies. The prospect may have held 50 million barrels (7.9×106 m3) producible reserves of oil. It is 40 miles (64 km) offshore and 130 miles (210 km) from New Orleans.
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