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Report looks at BP well blowout preventer

WASHINGTON, March 23 (UPI) -- The blowout at BP's Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico was so forceful it overwhelmed the blowout preventer, a report released Wednesday said.

The report was done for the U.S. Interior Department by a Norwegian company that spent months examining the blowout preventer, The New York Times reported.

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Det Norske Veritas said the oil and gas gushing up through the 53-foot tall preventer bent a section of drill pipe, which got stuck in a rubber ring. Oil backing up below bent the pipe further out of shape and drill shears that were supposed to cut the pipe were unable to perform as designed.

The explosion and fire that followed on April 20, 2010, killed 11 people on the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform.

The findings could lead to changes in design of blowout preventers, the Times said. Donald Van Nieuwenhuise, head of petroleum geoscience at the University of Houston, said better backup systems are clearly needed for them.

But Van Nieuwenhuise said the blowout and explosion at the Macondo well was the result of a number of human errors and system failures.

"You can add this to the other nine, 10 or 11 reasons why it happened," he said.

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