Oil Platform Explodes in GOM

By ALAN SAYRE, Associated Press Writer Alan Sayre, Associated Press Writer – 6 mins ago

NEW ORLEANS, La. – Another oil rig exploded and caught fire Thursday off the Louisiana coast, spreading a mile-long oil sheen in the Gulf of Mexico west of the site of BP's massive spill. All 13 crew members were rescued.

Coast Guard Petty Officer Bill Coklough said the sheen, about 100 feet wide, was spotted near the platform. Firefighting vessels were battling the flames.

The company that owns the rig, Houston-based Mariner Energy, did not know what caused the blast, which was reported by a helicopter flying over the area.

Crew members were found floating in the water, huddled together in survival outfits called "gumby suits."

"These guys had the presence of mind, used their training to get into those gumby suits before they entered the water. It speaks volumes to safety training and the importance of it because, beyond getting off the rig, there's all the hazards of the water such as hypothermia," Coast Guard spokesman Chief Petty Officer John Edwards said.

The crew was being flown to a hospital in Houma. Coast Guard Cmdr. Cheri Ben-Iesau said one person was injured, but the company said there were no injuries.

Seven Coast Guard helicopters, two airplanes and three cutters were dispatched to the scene.

The platform is in about 340 feet of water and about 100 miles south of Louisiana's Vermilion Bay. It's location is considered shallow water, much less than the approximately 5,000 feet where BP's well spewed oil and gas for three months after the April rig explosion.

Responding to any oil spill in shallow water would be much easier than in deep water, where crews depend on remote-operated vehicles access equipment on the sea floor.

The rig is a fixed platform that was in production at the time of the fire, according to a homeland security operational update obtained by The Associated Press.

The update said the platform was producing 58,800 gallons of oil and 900,000 cubic feet of gas per day. The platform can store 4,200 gallons of oil.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said Mariner Energy officials told him there were seven active production wells on the platform, and they were shut down shortly after the fire broke out.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said President Barack Obama was in a national security meeting at the time of the accident.

"We obviously have response assets ready for deployment should we receive reports of pollution in the water," Gibbs said.

The platform is about 200 miles west of BP's blown-out well. A company report said the well was drilled in the third quarter of 2008.

Federal authorities have cited Mariner Energy and related entities for 10 accidents in the Gulf of Mexico over the last four years, according to safety records from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement.

The accidents range from platform fires to pollution spills and a blowout, according to accident-investigation reports from the agency formerly known as the Minerals Management Service.

In 2007, welding sparks falling onto an oil storage tank caused a flash fire that slightly burned a contract worker. The Minerals Management Service issued a $35,000 fine.

Mariner Energy Inc. focuses on oil and gas exploration and production in the Gulf. In April, Apache Corp., another independent oil company, announced plans to buy Mariner in a cash-and-stock deal valued at $3.9 billion, including the assumption of about $1.2 billion of Mariner's debt. That deal is pending.

On Friday, BP was expected to begin the process of removing the cap and failed blowout preventer, another step toward completion of a relief well that would put a final seal on the well. The Deepwater Horizon exploded April 20, killing 11 people and setting off a three-month leak that totaled 206 million gallons of oil.

Workers safe after fire in Gulf

BATON ROUGE -- Quick action Thursday extinguishing a fire on an oil production platform in the Gulf of Mexico averted what was initially feared to be a possible second environmental disaster in four months.

But unlike the British Petroleum explosion, the problem on Mariner Energy's Vermilion 308 platform did not involve any oil production and instead involved materials stored topside. And although a bright sheen was initially reported, an hour later no sign of it was found in a fly-over.

Three Coast Guard boats with high-pressure firefighting equipment extinguished the blaze 100 miles off the coast of Vermilion Parish.

Thirteen workers on the Vermilion 308 platform escaped the fire by donning floating suits and jumping into the Gulf of Mexico. Photos show them floating in a chain, arms linked, as they awaited rescue. They were transported to Terrebonne General Hospital in Houma to be checked out and then were released.

Gov. Bobby Jindal visited the crew in Houma and reported, "The workers and families I met with were all very happy to have a positive outcome to this incident, and everyone in Louisiana is certainly able to breathe easier now that we know these men are all safe and uninjured.

"While our first priority is the safety and well-being of the workers, we are also glad to learn from the Coast Guard and Mariner Energy that the platform does not appear to be leaking," the governor said.

"The Coast Guard continues to check valves on the platform to ensure that it has been completely shut in. All of our state agencies continue to coordinate with the Coast Guard to keep updated on the situation and supply any response resources that may be needed."

Jindal said "two of the workers I met with were from Louisiana, and they told me that 12 of them got life jackets, but they were unable to reach one because it was too close to the fire so some of the workers held one of the men up in the water, which is probably why one worker was thought to be injured when seen from far away."

Jindal said at an afternoon press conference that Mariner Energy officials told him that all seven of the producing oil and gas wells serviced by the production platform had been shut down immediately after the explosion. The cause of the fiery blast had yet to be determined.

The Coast Guard was alerted to the problem by a 9:19 a.m. call from another platform and by a helicopter pilot. Dark smoke billowed from the site.

Shutting off the flow and getting the fire under control was "a big step forward" in assuring safety, the governor said.

, but from his experience with the BP explosion and massive spill, he would not just take the company's word for it.

BP officials at first said no oil was leaking and later greatly underestimated the flow from the Macondo well.

"We continue to be cautious," Jindal said, and his attitude is "trust, but verify."

The Coast Guard early Thursday reported a 100-feet-wide, mile-long sheen on the water but later said nothing could be found.

Mariner Energy said condensate, a liquid hydrocarbon that is withdrawn from natural gas, was being stored on the platform, and it appeared that was the source of the blaze.

Liquid propane, one of the primary hydrocarbons in condensate, evaporates quickly, so that would explain why the sheen disappeared, according to the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association.

Scott Angelle, secretary of the Department of Natural Resources and now acting as lieutenant governor, said this is one of "thousands" of production platforms in the Gulf. "Some are manned, some are unmanned."

Angelle said he received a report that the 13 workers were doing maintenance work on the platform when the explosion occurred.

DNR records show 1,700 production facilities within Louisiana coastal waters, which extend three miles from shore.

More than 3,700 platforms are scattered about the Gulf of Mexico, the ninth largest body of water in the world covering about 600,000 square miles.

Things like this just don't happen. How long have there been oil platforms in the gulf, yet suddenly two just explode within just a couple months of one another!? Oil rigs are a LOT more stable that THAT.

With ALL the inspectors from the state government, federal government, corporate, insurance companies, and the oil rig manager all cracking down on rig safety and maintenance, how the hell could this POSSIBLY happen!?

The first rig explosion might have had a mechanical malfunction, but this second one has GOT to be sabotage, plain and simple. Probably ELF or some other leftwing extremist group. But the federal investigation will not go far enough to figure that out, at least not officially.

And yes, I wouldn't put it past the ELF types to do something like this. Yes, they'd possibly be damaging the environment, in a limited area, and for a limited time. But keep in mind that all the oil spill cleanup equipment is still not very far away. The ecological damage would be very limited, yet the larger impact would be felt in the oil industry. The more of these things start blowing up and leaking oil, the more likely the federal and state governments will ban offshore drilling completely.

Worse, it could be something geological-pressures building in the Earth due to solar influences or something else from space. A well blew in Louisiana I believe. There have been a LOT more earthquakes, terrible weather. I think the Earth is receiving more energy than it can normally handle. These things come in cycles and when those cycles peak lots of havoc can be expected. Could be.

Interesting that you say that, because there just happens to be a huge fault line that travels along the length of the Mississippi River.

When Matthew Bracken wrote about huge recurring earthquakes along the Mississippi River in his third book in the Enemies series, Foreign Enemies and Traitors, he wasn't just making stuff up. That could indeed happen.

According to most American Indian lore, North America is a giant turtle with dirt covering its back. There also happens to be a Mohawk belief that some day this turtle's back will break, right down the middle. The Indian metaphors are obvious.

However, I still believe this was an act of sabotage. Oil rigs elsewhere in the world are highly secure, however right off the US coast, security (if it exists at all) is nowhere near as tight. A saboteur who knows his way around oil rigs could easily pull this off.

No sign of oil after Gulf platform fire: Coast Guard

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) – An oil and gas platform operated by Mariner Energy burst into flames in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday, but the crew of 13 escaped and there were no signs of an oil spill, the Coast Guard said.

The accident brought unwelcome attention to the offshore drilling industry as it is trying to roll back a six-month deepwater drilling moratorium imposed in the wake of the BP Plc Macondo well disaster, which killed 11 workers and poured 4.1 million barrels of oil into the Gulf.

As of late Thursday, there were no signs of a spill from the Mariner platform.

"The boats and the aircraft on scene cannot see a sheen," U.S. Coast Guard Captain Peter Troedsson told a news conference Thursday afternoon in New Orleans.

Shortly after the fire, Mariner reported there was a mile-long oily sheen on the water around the platform, according to the government.

On Friday morning, Coast Guard helicopters will fly over and inspect the platform and surrounding ocean, a Coast Guard spokeswoman said.

The fire burned for several hours before it was extinguished. A company spokesman said it started on an upper deck of the platform where living quarters were located, and had not been caused by a "blowout," or sudden release of oil and gas from a well.

The crew, plucked from the Gulf by an oil supply vessel, were transported to a hospital onshore and no injuries have been reported, the Houston-based company said.

Automated shutoff equipment turned off the flow of oil and gas from the platform's seven producing wells as the crew evacuated, Mariner said. The cause of the fire is still unknown and under investigation, the company said.

"It's unlikely to have long-term implications for production in the Gulf of Mexico," said Raoul LeBlanc, a senior director at PFC Energy in Houston.

Environmental groups said the Mariner explosion reinforced the need to keep the moratorium in place. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said he did not know whether the fire would affect the moratorium, scheduled to expire November 30.

Several analysts said the accident could hurt the industry in its court battle to lift the drilling halt early.

"The incident has happened at the wrong time," said Eugen Weinberg, head of commodity research at Commerzbank. "The political establishment will probably move quickly as everybody still remembers the slow dealing with the Macondo accident and the dramatic pictures from this summer."

The platform is located more than 90 miles south of Louisiana's Vermilion Bay, 200 miles west of BP's ruptured Macondo well. It is in relatively shallow water 340 feet deep.

The platform's output is a small fraction of the 1.6 million barrels of oil and 6.4 billion cubic feet of gas the region produces on a daily basis.

The facility averaged 9.2 million cubic feet of natural gas per day and 1,400 barrels of oil and condensate per day during the last week of August, Mariner said.

MARKET REACTS

News of the fire helped push crude oil prices up $1.11 to $75.02 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil prices were also boosted by Hurricane Earl, which is threatening refineries along the U.S. East Coast.

Shares of Mariner Energy fell 2.6 percent to close at $22.75 and shares of Apache Corp, which is expected to buy Mariner Energy in a $2.7 billion deal, fell 1.3 percent to close at $91.30.

Apache plans to proceed with the Mariner purchase, Apache spokesman Bill Mintz, said.

Mariner has participated in at least 35 deepwater projects in the Gulf and operated over half of them.

The fire was the fifth reported at offshore sites operated by Mariner since October 2006, according to the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement.

None of the earlier fires caused any fatalities, although workers were injured in two of the accidents. The company also suffered a blowout while drilling a well about 90 miles off the Louisiana coast in May 2008, but the well was brought under control within a few hours.

The Vermillion platform was last inspected in January and found to have three minor compliance violations, according to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management records.

(Additional reporting by Kristen Hays, Bruce Nichols, Erwin Seba and Eileen O'Grady in Houston; David Sheppard, Matt Daily and Joshua Schneyer in New York; Tom Doggett, Ayesha Rascoe and Timothy Gardner in Washington; writing by Anna Driver and Andy Sullivan in Washington; Editing by Paul Simao)