An oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico Friday, reportedly killing at least two. The accident hits an industry trying to improve on safety in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
By
Patrik Jonsson, Staff writer /
November 16, 2012
An offshore oil platform burns in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana Friday.
KLFY TV10/REUTERS
In Pictures: Big Environmental Disasters
Atlanta
A day after BP agreed to pay a record $4.5 billion criminal fine for its role in the deadly Deepwater Horizon environmental disaster in 2010, another Gulf of Mexico oil rig exploded, killing at least two workers and injuring as many as 11 on Friday.
While early reports are downplaying the potential for another major
environmental disaster, the deadly accident came as the Gulf oil
industry tries to shore up a safety record that came under deep scrutiny
in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon explosion, which killed 11 workers
and resulted in some five million barrels of oil escaping into the Gulf
from a broken wellhead.
The explosion and ensuing fire on Friday
happened on a permanent oil pumping rig owned by independent driller
Black Elk Energy around 10 a.m. Eastern time as workers were using
cutting torches to split some pipe on the oil rig.
Early indications showed some oil had escaped from the platform, but Coast Guard
officials said it was not “a major oil spill response” and that no oil
was leaking from the rig. “It’s not going to be an uncontrolled
discharge from everything we’re getting right now,” said Coast Guard
Capt. Ed Cubanski.
The rig is located about 36 miles south of Port Fourchon,
La. By afternoon, the main fire on the rig had been extinguished and
the Coast Guard had begun its oil-spill response as reports indicated
that a half-mile long, 200-yard wide sheen had developed on the water
near the stricken platform.
In April 2010, the Deepwater Horizon
capsized and sank after firefighting boats failed to get control of the
blaze. On Thursday, BP, the company that had leased the rig, pleaded
guilty to charges related to the workers’ deaths and accepted a deal
that would put two monitors in charge of assessing the company’s safety
processes for the next five years.
Unlike the Deepwater Horizon,
which was a deep water exploratory rig, the Black Elk rig is a shallow
water platform pumping from a permanent wellhead. The rig was not
producing oil on Friday, but workers were performing maintenance. After
the explosion, two people were confirmed dead, two were still missing,
and 11 were injured, four seriously.
“West Delta Block 32 – our
thoughts and prayers are with those who are impacted,” the Black Elk
Energy website said in large letters Friday afternoon. “We have Black
Elk personnel on the scene and en route.”
While the Deepwater
Horizon leak brought unprecedented scrutiny to the oil industry’s safety
procedures in the Gulf, Friday’s accident is part of a legacy of danger
endured by the nation’s oil workers.
Between 2001 and 2010, the US
government documented 69 offshore deaths, 1,349 injuries and 858 fires
and explosions on offshore rigs situated in the Gulf of Mexico.
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