Original subtitles

(dramatic cinematic music)

- [Narrator] Our history is no more than a series

of incredible events.

Every one of us can influence its course.

(moderate rock music)

The most infinitesimal of our decisions

can influence the future of humanity.

To know the past is to foresee the future.

Miami Beach, 2017.

On the idyllic Florida beaches,

vacationers bathe in the summer sun.

Protected by a great barrier,

they take advantage of the blue flag.

Today, the petroleum levels in the water

are below the maximum threshold.

The cataclysmic oil spill created by the explosion

of a petroleum platform seven years earlier

will never be fully contained.

The Gulf of Mexico has become a vast dead zone,

asphyxiated by the thick and heavy blanket of oil.

All marine life has disappeared.

To save the American coastline,

an immense floating dam was permanently installed.

But, none of this ever happened.

In 2010, the terrible oil spill created

by the sinking of the Deepwater station

was eventually contained.

2001, South Korea.

The petroleum platform Deepwater Horizon

is operational and ready to perform

its first drilling assignment on the high seas.

On the evening of April 20th, 2010,

the platform is on fire.

On the 22nd, it sinks to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.

Five months later, the British Petroleum Society

finally manages to plug the leak and stop the oil spill.

(dramatic cinematic music)

These three inextricably linked events

are key moments in the sinking of Deepwater Horizon,

one of the most serious oil disasters of our time.

(gentle piano music)

Oil, black gold.

In our society, wherever we look,

whatever we do, it is there.

It is the base of our plastics and our roads.

It is how our cars run and our planes fly.

Thanks to it, we have even been able to walk on the moon.

From its use as a remedy during ancient times

to the service stations of today,

petroleum has benefited humankind for more than 2,000 years.

Buried thousands of feet underground,

it has been fueling our activities

for more than a hundred years.

Still, it was not always there.

For millions upon millions of years,

in the depths of the early oceans,

the remains of billions of living organisms

have been slowly settling on the ocean's floor.

Accumulating in successive layers,

an infinitesimal part of this decomposing organic matter

has been progressively covered by sediment

and buried deeper and deeper within the bowels of the Earth.

Tens of millions of years later,

a strong pressure and temperatures rising to 150 degrees

have transformed these particles into hydrocarbons.

This crude petroleum has a tendency to rise to the surface

thanks to the permeability of certain rocks.

As it reaches the upper layers of soil,

it becomes progressively heavier and thicker.

(oil gurgling)

But, sometimes, its migration is blocked

by a layer of impervious rock.

This is when it accumulates, drop after drop,

creating immense natural reservoirs.

Trapped miles under our feet,

subjected to intense pressures,

one only needs to drill in the right spot

to make it spring to the surface.

(soil popping) (men cheering)

Millions of years of fossil energy

condensed in this slimy black liquid

are at the disposal of anyone who wants to use it.

(gentle futuristic music)

- [Computerized Woman] Welcome to the memory of humanity.

Every historical event, regardless of how small,

is recorded and connected.

You only need to change one to upset all the others.

Here, we are able to control time,

analyze and compare billions of events

in order to rewrite history in infinite ways.

For example, imagine our world without hydrocarbon.

The most visible consequence would be in transportation.

Our cars, as well as trucks and boats,

run almost exclusively on oil.

Without it, we would have stayed with the energy giant

of the 19th century: coal.

But coal is an energy source

much less powerful than petroleum.

To obtain the same yield,

we would need to cover the planet

in coal-fired power stations

and drill until the ground resembled Swiss cheese

and the forests were in danger of disappearing.

With a coal fire boiler,

it would be impossible to get an airplane off the ground,

let alone a rocket.

Deprived of satellites,

we would not have cell phones or GPS devices.

We would travel on trains, steamers, or zeppelins.

Without petroleum, plastic would not exist.

Plastic has revolutionized our way of life:

medical and sanitary hygiene,

food packaging, and electronics.

Petroleum has been one of the most powerful players

in humankind's development.

(machinery hissing)

- [Narrator] Titusville, 1859.

In this pioneer Pennsylvania city,

Edwin L. Drake drills and extracts petroleum

for the first time on American soil.

Soon, the little town is covered in oil derricks,

and the population explodes,

going from 250 to 10,000 inhabitants in just five years.

The discovery launches a veritable black gold rush.

(oil whooshing)

Up to this point, the industrial extraction

of underground deposits has been deemed impossible.

Drake's idea is simple:

suspend a drill, a massive piece of steel,

from a cable, and use a steam engine to propel it.

August 27th, 1859, he succeeds

in piercing a layer of impervious rock,

which contains crude oil.

Gushing to the surface,

the precious liquid marks the beginning of a new age,

the era of the industrial exploitation of oil.

Very quickly, deposits are discovered all over the world.

Oil companies flourish, fighting in a frantic race

to get the best deals.

Production goes from 6,000 barrels in 1858

to 150 million in 1900.

From then on, oil is not only used for lighting,

but also for heating and powering car engines.

Petroleum quickly becomes a pillar of the economy.

Countries are unable to continue developing

without their own secure

and abundant supply of hydrocarbons.

In the aftermath of World War II,

under the combined pressure of price increases

and rising demand for energy,

deposits, which were previously considered

economically unsustainable, are exploited.

We dig deeper and deeper,

under even more extreme conditions.

We understand that natural oil resources

are much more extensive than the drilling techniques

are allowing us to exploit.

In the '70s, the petroleum industry launches an assault

on the oil reserves in the North Sea

which were previously untouched.

To defy the elements,

and obtain the deposits buried several miles deep,

sturdy oil rigs are constructed.

(loudspeaker squawking)

This is the beginning of offshore drilling.

- [Computerized Woman] Giants of the seas.

An oil rig is a structure designed to extract,

produce, or store hydrocarbons on the high seas.

There are 17,000 in existence around the world.

Among them, certain are permanent,

and can extract deposits located 1,000 feet deep.

Others, floating and motorized,

specialize in drilling in much deeper waters.

This is the case for the Deepwater Horizon station.

This type of rig, equipped with giant floating devices

and diesel engines, readjusts position continuously

to keep the drill perfectly vertical.

Its derrick makes it possible to lower the drill string,

a long line of hollow rods screwed end to end,

several miles under the ocean floor.

At the other end, a hard steel drill

digs through the Earth's crust,

searching for a pocket of petroleum.

As it digs, mud is constantly added

to keep the drill cool, evacuate debris,

balance the pressure, and stabilize the well.

During the drilling operation,

the well is reinforced using steel tubes and cement

to minimize the risk of accidents.

The rig workers live with a great fear:

a kick, or sudden and violent eruption

of highly pressurized oil or gas.

To reduce risks, a complex mechanism

called a blowout preventer, or BOP,

allows one to instantly block any reflux in the tube.

In theory, if all these security systems are operational,

an accident cannot happen.

(helicopter whirring)

- [Narrator] April 2010, the Gulf of Mexico,

45 miles off the American Coast.

The ultra-modern Deepwater Horizon platform,

leased by the English company BP, just finished

one of the deepest drilling missions in history.

On the platform are 126 highly specialized personnel.

Their mission: drill the wells, stabilize them,

and then leave room for the exploitation platforms.

Deepwater is a technological gem.

Thanks to it, BP is able to reach deposits

that were previously inaccessible.

Still, on April 20th, the multi-national company

is behind schedule.

Each day, it is losing around $1 million.

It is high time to reach the last step of the drill,

the creation of the temporary cement plug,

before another production unit takes the relay.

11:15 a.m.

The team in charge of checking the cement leaves the station

without caring all the of the tests required by law.

For some time now, BP has risked security

by squeezing budgets and cutting corners.

The tests are considered too long,

too expensive, and superfluous.

7:55 p.m.

On the drilling bridge,

the operations team performs a pressure check.

The goal is to verify that the cement plug

sufficiently blocks the petroleum from rising.

The test comes back negative.

This is a bad sign.

This can indicate a significant problem,

involve serious setbacks,

and prevent the platform from moving.

So, they decide to use another method of measurement.

The new results are interpreted as positive.

But, three and a half miles below,

thanks to a flaw in the cement plug,

oil and gas begin seeping into the well.

(suspenseful cinematic music)

8:52 p.m.

The pressure falls in the column;

the well becomes unstable.

From the dark sea floor,

the hydrocarbons rise uncontrollably to the surface.

9:40 p.m.

A worker notices mud on the drill bridge.

Quickly, he engages the first security measures.

On the sea bed, the annular of the blowout preventer

is blocked in order to prevent infiltration.

It's too late.

The hydrocarbons are already rising

at full speed inside the column.

On the drilling bridge,

a mixture of mud and oil burst in the air.

The well is erupting.

(alarm blaring)

They try in vain to activate the blowout preventer,

but, because of the pressure, the tube has changed shape.

The ultimate safety tools are not responding.

Tearing through the darkness, the alarms sound.

Gas, highly flammable, floods the platform.

The situation has become explosive.

The horrible smell of gas is everywhere.

One small spark is all it takes.

(platform exploding)

- [Computerized Woman] Fighting an oil spill.

Petroleum does not dissolve in water.

Because it's lighter than water,

a large part floats on the surface in compact pools.

The immediate danger is to the marine life:

Mammals who need to come to the surface to breathe,

or birds who find themselves trapped by an oily ocean.

Because oil blocks sun rays

from penetrating the surface of the ocean,

it prevents the photosynthesis of plankton,

and slowly asphyxiates the ocean.

If nothing is done, the final stage of an oil spill

is a dead ocean, in which no organism is capable of living.

To fight against these pools of oil,

one can create floating dams

which help protect the coastlines.

One can also burn the pools on the surface,

or use dispersants, which split up the pools into droplets.

This will accelerate the natural deterioration process.

If the oil manages to reach the coastline,

the remaining methods to fight against permanent damage

are very basic: shovels and bulldozers

will be used to clean the damaged beaches.

In all cases, stopping the origin of an oil spill

is always the main priority.

Without that, the fight is lost before it has begun.

- [Narrator] 11 people die in the initial explosion.

115 are trapped on a sinking platform

with flames raging everywhere.

Blistered by oppressive heat,

choked by hydrocarbon vapors,

the men mechanically execute the gestures

they repeated dozens of times during training.

The level of chaos is indescribable.

The fire, fueled by an entire field of oil,

burns out of control.

Rescued by a supply boat,

the men of Deepwater can only contemplate helplessly

the extent of the disaster.

All know that the damage has only begun.

In the middle of the night, the Coast Guards

who receive the distress call from the station

use the full power of their boat

to head in the direction of the spill.

In the middle of the morning,

firefighters approach the furnace to put out the flames.

It's a fruitless effort.

April 22nd.

At 10:21 a.m., the Deepwater Horizon platform,

critically damaged,

sinks with 2,600,000 gallons of oil on its surface.

(dramatic cinematic music)

The steel tube that connected the platform to the well

twists in agony under the weight of the giant,

then breaks and vomits an endless stream of crude oil

into the heart of the ocean.

Millions of liters of oil each day.

May 2nd.

To reach the leak and seal it,

BP launches rescue well drilling expeditions,

but it will take months.

The race against the clock has begun.

The fate of the Gulf of Mexico is on the line.

Everything in the arsenal is deployed.

Floating containment dams, controlled burning,

attempts to reactivate the blowout preventer

using underwater robots.

But nothing works.

A state of emergencY is declared.

As of May 15th, all attempts by BP

to stop the spill have failed.

The Coast Guard's authorized the use of Corexit 9500,

a powerful oil dispersant, sacrificing the marine ecosystem

for the sake of the coastline.

Debates rage over who has legal responsibility

for the hundreds of miles of coastline already affected.

June 1st.

The bleeding lasts for over a month.

In July, the efforts are just beginning to pay off.

A new containment decreases the flow of the leak.

Beginning of August, the BP engineers manage to inject mud

directly into the drill string,

and slowly stem the flow of oil.

The well is officially stabilized,

but it still isn't definitively sealed.

September 16th,

the emergency drilling finally reaches its goal

and injects tons of cement into the well.

On the 19th, the nightmare ends.

It lasted five months.

All that remains is for the bill to be paid.

- [Computerized Woman] We have arrived

at a point of divergence.

A point of divergence is a key moment,

a crossroads in our history where our world can swing

from one side to the other.

The sinking of the Deepwater station

resulted in one of the worst oil spills in history.

After five months of fighting,

the BP company finally succeeded in plugging the leak.

Previously, in 1979, another oil rig

had also exploded and sank.

The leak, which was less severe,

was stopped after nine long months.

If BP had not managed to control the leak,

the environmental consequences, which are already extensive,

would have been immeasurable.

The Gulf of Mexico waters deprived of sun,

saturated in oil, and devoid of oxygen,

would have become dead zones,

where life would no longer be possible.

To protect what was left of it, immense permanent dams

would have surround the US coasts for hundreds of miles,

trying to give bathers a sense of normalcy.

But, beyond the dams,

the disaster area would be a dead sea abandoned to its fate.

A petroleum ocean.

- [Narrator] Close to 200 million gallons of crude petroleum

have been released in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

The devastating impact on wildlife and vegetation

is impossible to quantify.

The spill spread over nearly 24,000 square miles,

killing hundreds of thousands of marine animals,

and damaging 1,000 miles of coastline,

the most terrible ocean-based oil disaster in history.

Yet, compared to the global impact

of the oil industry on our world,

it is unfortunately only a drop of water.

In 2016, the worldwide production

reached nearly 92 million barrels a day.

Extracting and transporting all this oil

poses delicate geopolitical problems, and fuels greed.

Only a few countries, creating a kind of monopoly,

possess the bulk of the world's reserves.

In 1970, the price per barrel was at $1.80.

In 2008, it reached $146, 80 times higher.

Each barrel that is produced is a source of tension.

From the energy crisis of the 1970s to the 1990 Gulf War,

any oil crisis seems to be, in essence, a political problem.

A motivation for development,

black gold is often the impetus of war.

The economic and strategic stakes are huge,

as is the direct involvement of oil

and the emission of greenhouse gasses,

recognized today as the main cause of global warming.

Stuck between dwindling reserves, wars,

financial stakes, and climate challenges,

humankind seems compelled to find new energy solutions.

But that is another story.

- [Computerized Woman] Each liter of petroleum

is an ultra-concentrated fossil fuel

that has accumulated since the dawn of time.

A phenomenal power trapped in tiny pockets

dispersed throughout the planet.

By harnessing it, humankind has managed

to thrive as never before.

We are completely addicted to this fuel source,

and use it without restriction,

even to the point of disturbing

the balance of the global climate.

Thanks to oil, we have known abundance,

but everything comes at a price.

We are currently living beyond our means,

and squandering our resources.

This fossil fuel exists in limited quantities.

Petroleum is not a renewable energy.

The more we consume, the less there is.

While demand is only growing,

supply will eventually drop, and tensions will rise.

The post-oil era debate raises many concerns.

Some think that we should immediately

stop burning all hydrocarbons.

Others refuse to sacrifice their lifestyles

and rely on science to find new sources of energy.

The solution, as it often is,

is probably a little of both options.

One thing is certain:

A period of important changes is imminent.

Changes at least as monumental

as the ones that followed the discovery of oil.

(dramatic cinematic music)