Cameron is a provider of pressure control and flow control systems to the oil and gas industry, employing over 15,000 people and making almost $4 billion profit in 2006. It is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and is a Fortune 500 company, being the second largest US manufacturer of oilfield equipment.
Cameron made the blowout preventers that were fitted to the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, and which were supposed to prevent the kind of accident that occurred. Their hydraulically operated system of safety valves is supposed to prevent sudden increases in pressure from causing blowouts, but there is evidence that their equipment was unable to operate at the kinds of depths that the Deepwater Horizon was drilling at.
When a blowout does occur, the equipment, called shear rams, is supposed to pinch and crimp the steel pipe shut, thus sealing it and preventing any more oil from escaping. However, as the oil and gas industry probes deeper and deeper to get to the harder to reach oil reserves, the thickness of the steel pipes and the intense pressure at 5000 feet below sea level makes these blowout preventers ineffective. In 2004 it was found that only 3 out of 14 newly built deep water oil rigs had blowout preventers that could operate at the depths involved.