Posted on 09/02/2010 10:23:58 AM PDT by Bad~Rodeo
NEW ORLEANS, La. – An offshore petroleum platform exploded and was burning Thursday in the Gulf of Mexico about 100 miles off the Louisiana coast, west of the site where BP's undersea well spilled after a rig explosion. The Coast Guard said no one was killed in the explosion, which was spotted by a commercial helicopter flying over the site Thursday morning. All 13 people aboard the rig have been accounted for, with one injury. The extent of the injury was not known.
They were rescued from the water by an offshore service vessel, the Crystal Clear, said Coast Guard Cmdr. She said they were taken to a nearby platform. All were being flown to the Terrebonne General Medical Center in Houma to be checked over.
"Thirteen people were seen huddled together in the water wearing gumby suits or immersion suits, water protection suits, so we were able to confirm that all people were accounted for," Coast Guard spokesman Chief Petty Officer John Edwards said.
Seven Coast Guard helicopters, two airplanes and three cutters were dispatched to the scene from New Orleans, Houston and Mobile, Ala., Ben-Iesau said. She said authorities do not know whether oil
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Since April, three oil rig leaks, two of them explosions, all in the Gulf. Conspiracy theorists are going to have a field day, and who can blame them? It does give one pause.
It’s funny how the reporters sound as though an oil sheen after an oil rig explosion is a surprising result.
This is nothing. Mark my words. Where is the liberal media’s BP oil spill now? I called that one too.
Anybody think it odd that all of a sudden this “environmental disaster of the century” is now nowhere to be found?
What happened to the other liberal media lies like swine flu, toyota brakes, sars, BP oil spill, global warming, etc?
The liberal mainstream media keeps lying and people keep believing that what they spew out as “news” is news when it is just marxist made up propaganda.
LOL. sure. where is your BP oil spill now?
And you believe the media.
You all have to understand the mainstream media are the enemy, marxists/liberals all.
See you here in a week when there will be no more “reports” of this.
Or people aren't following safety procedures.
It’s about the right time for obama to make an executive order banning all oil, gas, gasoline, and other flammable/explosive materials.
Leftist terrorism.
Did you catch the rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico today?
Some people did. And, possibly thinking it was another BP (BP) blowout, they sold the shares of the owner of the facility — Mariner Energy (ME) — down nearly 20% before details emerged suggesting the explosion wasn’t that big and not even near on the order of what hit Transocean’s (RIG) Deepwater Horizon rig in April and killed 11 workers.
It’s not clear what set off the explosion. Mariner officials suggested initially that it occured while workers were painting and sandblasting.
Mariner’s shares had recovered nearly all of their loss and were off 2.4% to $22.80 at 3:38 p.m. ET.
What apparently did happen was that a fire broke out on the Mariner’s Vermilion Rig 360, a production platform operating in the Gulf of Mexico about 90 miles south of Vermilion Bay in central Louisiana. Thirteen workers were aboard the platform at the time. All have been rescued; one was injured.
The workers were believed to have shut in the seven wells serviced by the production platform. But that has not yet been confirmed.
While Mariner spokesman Patrick Cassidy told CNBC that there was no evidence of a spill or a sheen on the surface of the Gulf, the Coast Guard said this afternoon there appeared to a mile-long sheen spreading out from the rig.
The incident highlights the confusion many people have about a production platform and a drilling rig. A production platform is installed to produce oil and gas whose wells have been drilled and set up with pipe and concrete casings.
Mariner’s platform is in 340 feet of water. The Deepwater Horizon platform was drilling a well in 5,000 feet of water south of New Orleans.
It’s not clear what set off the fire. Workers were sanding and painting the top decks of the platform at the time of the incident, Cassidy said.
The platform is a fixed petroleum platform that was in production at the time of the fire, The Associated Press said. The platform was producing about 58,800 gallons of oil and 900,000 cubic feet of gas per day. The platform can store 4,200 gallons of oil.
Mariner is an oil and gas production company with assets in the Gulf of Mexico and in the Permian Basin in West Texas. It had revenue of $942 million in 2009 and reported a loss of $581.4 million. Excluding one-time charges, it earned $21 million, or 22 cents a share. Operating cash flow was $531 million.
Its largest shareholder is Paulson & Co., the hedge fund operator, which owns 9.7% of the shares.
The company has agreed to a $2.7 billion buyout offer from Apache (APA). The cash-and-stock deal is valued at $26.22.
Apache was off 1.6% to $91.
The Deepwater Horizon incident set off the largest oil spill in U.S. history and caused the Obama administration to impose a moratorium on new deep-water wells in the Gulf. The oil industry has sued, trying to get the ban lifted.
Because the Vermilion rig was already producing oil, it wasn’t affected by the moratorium.
Has anyone seen any live shots or pictures of the burning well? Seems strange that the media hasn’t posted any pictures.
Hussein lost in court to stop drilling this week, and lo and behold, another explosion. Hmm.
reminds me of Sinatra singing “Ill have it MY way”
this incident seems to be not nearly as bad as the Deepwater spill.
Was that cable cutting ever solved?
I have wondered if there is some issue with under water drilling that our science is just not aware of. All the quakes this year seemed to be up ticking as well. I have wondered if it was related to the “drilling” problem.
Of course, planned sabotage come to mind as well.
In this image courtesy of KATC3 news channel in Lafayette,
Louisiana, an offshore oil platform burns in the Gulf
13 workers from an offshore oil platform that caught fire
wait for rescue after they jumped to the sea
Hmmmmmmmm............
I bet it was, but we were never told as far as I know.
I just remembered that the whole Internet was abuzz with the news of the suspicious cuttings, and then the news just fell down the memory hole.
I can't imagine that intelligence services the whole world over just learned of the news of the multiple severed cables and thought "Gee, that's odd. Oh well..." without diligently going out to truly find out the cause.
Did you ever hear anything more about it? I sure didn't.
The Obamanation of America’s desolation handiwork perhaps. A day after another federal judge said no to the obamanation administraion, a fire and an explosion. The last one was the day before earth day I believe.
What? Did Ubama already blow the 20 billion? he got from BP.
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