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"DEEPWATER HORIZON" RIG EXPLOSION AND FIRE
NEW ORLEANS - Fifteen people were injured, including seven critically, and 12 others were missing Wednesday after an explosion that left an offshore drilling rig tilting and on fire in the Gulf of Mexico.
Helicopters, ships and an airplane were searching the waters off Louisiana's coast for workers who are believed to have gotten off the rig, but are unaccounted for.
Most of the 126 people on the rig, called Deepwater Horizon, were thought to have escaped safely after the explosion at about 10 p.m. Tuesday, Coast Guard Senior Chief Petty Officer Mike O'Berry said.
However Coast Guard spokeswoman Katherine McNamara told msnbc.com that a total of 15 had been injured, seven critically. Another 12 were still unaccounted for, she said.
Two of the injured were taken to a trauma center in Mobile, Ala., where there is a burn unit, but the nature of their injuries was unclear, Coast Guard Lt. Sue Kerver said.
'Burning pretty good'
The rig, about 52 miles southeast of Venice on Louisiana's tip, was listing about 10 degrees and still burning Wednesday morning.
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O'Berry said many workers who escaped the rig were being brought to land on a workboat, while authorities searched the Gulf of Mexico for any signs of lifeboats and the missing workers.
"We're hoping everyone's in a life raft," O'Berry said.
O'Berry said at one point the fire was so large and intense that it was hampering rescue efforts, WWL TV reported.
Fatalities feared
The rig was drilling but was not in production, according to Greg Panagos, spokesman for its owner, Transocean Ltd., in Houston. The rig was under contract to BP PLC.
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Transocean via AP
The rig Deepwater Horizon rig is seen in an undated file photo.
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"A substantial majority of the 126 member crew is safe but some crew members remain unaccounted for at this time," the company also said in a statement.
"Injured personnel are receiving medical treatment as necessary," the statement added. "The names and hometowns of injured persons are being withheld until family members can be notified."
BP spokesman David Nicholas said all six BP personnel who had been on the rig were safe.
Kerver said the Coast Guard and the federal Minerals Management Service will work together to investigate possible causes of the accident.
"It's still too early to tell the cause," Panagos said. "Our focus right now is on taking care of the people."
The Coast Guard statement included a next-of-kin hotline number, (832) 587-8554.
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Rig floats using pontoons
According to Transocean's website, the Deepwater Horizon is 396 feet long and 256 feet wide. The semi-submersible rig was built in 2001 by Hyundai Heavy Industries Shipyard in South Korea. The site is known as the Macondo prospect, in 5,000 feet of water.
The rig is designed to operate in water depths up to 8,000 feet and has a maximum drill depth of about 5.5 miles. It can accommodate a crew of up to 130.
The rig is floated to drilling sites, and has pontoons and a column that submerge when flooded with seawater. The rig doesn't touch the sea floor, but sits low in the water, where it is moored by several large anchors.
Last September, the Deepwater Horizon set a world deepwater record when it drilled down just over 35,000 feet at another BP site in the Gulf of Mexico, Panagos said.
"It's one of the more advanced rigs out there," he said.
Panagos did not know how much the rig cost to build, but said a similar rig today would run $600 million to $700 million.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Bill Gardner on
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Sympathies and condolences to all involved. Hold hope for a speedy recovery of the missing-bill gardner
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Permalink Reply by Ethan on
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Were there any diving operations going on? Hope for the best with those missing.
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Permalink Reply by Dive Diva on
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MOBILE, Alabama - 11:35 a.m.
Five of the six injured workers rushed to USA Medical Center have been treated and released. The sixth worker, whose name and condition has not been released, was admitted this morning to the USA Burn Center.
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Rig was drilling in 5000 fsw Macondo Prospect.
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Permalink Reply by tony karlsson on
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o s***!my heart goes out to all involved,god bless the missing and their famillies.been out there plenty times
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Further Update -
According to the USCG the Deepwater Horizon was drilling for BP Exploration & Production Inc. on Mississippi Canyon Block 252 about 41 miles off Louisiana.
Authorities confirm that 11 workers remained missing and 17 people had been injured of which three people were listed in critical condition. Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry said, "We have no idea where the 11 unaccounted-for personnel are."
The majority of the rig workers are veteran third-party contractors while 26 are directly employed by Houston-based Transocean, which built and owns the rig. Six others are employed by BP, which is leasing the rig at about $500,000 a day to explore oil deposits lying as deep as 30,000 feet below the Gulf's floor.
A spokeman for Transocean, owner of the rig, said that the crew would not have had much warning before having to evacuate the rig. An exploration well had been drilled to total depth of more than 18,000 ft.
Transocean spokesman Adrian Rose stated that the crews were running casing and cementing operations were being done when the accident occured. There was no indictation of any problems before the accident.
"Pressure built up in the marine riser," Rose said. "We have no facts to say this was a blowout," but initial reports indicate that is likely, he told reporters. It is unknown at this time whether the rig is a complete loss.
USCG officials said there was a light sheen of oil near the rig but that most of the hydrocarbons were burning. USCG personnel established a safety zone in the area.
According to the US Minerals Management Service records, BP was drilling the well in 4,992 fsw near Rigel gas field.
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Ladies & gentlemen-this ain't selling expansion of drilling exploration offshore canada & usa to the fence sitting majority of nervous nellies of both countrys.
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I don't know, its usually the golden rule. the one with the most gold gets to make the rules-unless you are canadian-where once in a blue moon the voters get so pissed off they reduce the ruling party to less than minority...not often but with enough vengence to make the golden rulers shake and piss themselves just a little bit. The golden haired mollified the oilpatch opening up the east coast while pretty much cooling off the west coasters by maintaining the west moratorium because east & west are really 3 countries.
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O K
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Yes please.
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Permalink Reply by Joseph on
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From URL;
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-04-25/bp-says-1-000-barrels-o...
BP Says 1,000 Barrels of Oil Leaking Daily From Gulf Well
April 25, 2010, 6:13 AM EDT
By Peter J. Brennan and Jim Polson
April 25 (Bloomberg) -- BP Plc and the U.S. Coast Guard said about 1,000 barrels of oil is leaking daily in the Gulf of Mexico, after a Transocean Ltd. drilling rig caught fire and sank last week.
“It’s 1,000 barrels emanating from 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) below the surface,” Coast Guard Rear Admiral Mary Landry, who is overseeing the rescue and cleanup efforts, said at a press conference yesterday. “Absolutely, this is a very serious oil spill.”
The Coast Guard April 23 estimated that the rig was leaking about 200 barrels and the well had been tapped. Landry said the well wasn’t fully capped and she learned April 24 that oil began surfacing two days earlier.
The spill covers a 400-square-mile section of the Gulf in the shape of a rainbow, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) from the coast, Landry said. It’s unknown when the well can be capped, she said.
The rig exploded on April 20, leading to a fire that caused it to sink two days later. Eleven of the 126 workers on board are missing and it’s presumed they were in the area of the explosion, Landry said. A search for them has been suspended and their families have been notified, she said.
BP, the oil producer that leased the Deepwater Horizon rig from Transocean, said it was found intact about 5,000-feet deep in the water and about 1,300 feet northwest of the well, according to Doug Suttles, chief operating officer of exploration and production for the oil company.
Blowout
Nearby pipelines that were temporarily shut weren’t affected by the rig’s explosion and should soon be operating, Landry said.
The rig burned for more than 24 hours after the explosion that Geneva-based Transocean said may have been caused by a so- called blowout, an unexpected surge in pressure that ejected petroleum at the top of the well.
If the missing workers died, it would be the deadliest U.S. offshore rig explosion since 1968, when 11 died and 20 were injured at a platform owned by Gulf Oil Corp., according to data from the Minerals Management Service. A 1987 helicopter crash aboard a Forest Oil Corp. platform killed 14 people.
--Editors: Sylvia Wier, D*** Schumacher.
To contact the reporters on this story: Peter J. Brennan in Los Angeles at pbrennan3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Sylvia Wier at swier@bloomberg.net
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