Oil rig explodes in Gulf of Mexico; Bahamas halts drilling

The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico put the world on alert. Well, there is more bad news to report. An oil rig exploded this morning in the Gulf of Mexico. The rig which was located about eighty miles south of Vermillion Bay, Louisiana belongs to an oil company called Mariner Energy. Thirteen persons were onboard the vermillion three hundred and eighty platform when it caught on fire. The fire is currently contained to one active well at the platform that has seven active wells. On average, the platform was producing fifty-eight thousand eight hundred gallons of oil and nine hundred thousand cubic feet of gas per day, while storing up to four thousand, two hundred gallons of oil.  Here’s an interview with Robert Gibbs, the White House Press Secretary, who confirmed that only one person has been injured.

Robert Gibbs, White House Press Secretary

“There’s a production platform about a hundred miles off the coast. I’m told the dept of water was about three hundred and forty feet so this is not a deep water facility. As I understand it, the well is not in active production. I will, in some ways, rhetoric what I think the Coast Guard has said in a statement they released and that is that they responded to reports of a fire onboard an oil platform in the gulf. The initial report that we got was that thirteen people were on the platform. They are accounted for, one is injured and is on his way out of that area. Two Coast Guard cutters, multiple Coast Guard aircraft were en route, one Coast Guard helicopter was on the scene. We will continue to gather information as we respond. We obviously have response assets ready for deployment should we receive reports of pollution.”

Reporter

“Would it have any impact on the current deep water drilling moratorium?”

Robert Gibbs

“Not that I know of and I say that largely because obviously we’re still trying to gather information about the events that are happening at that site right now. I think obviously there’s a process at the Department of the Interior around the existing deepwater moratorium and it’s hard to match those two issues up considering the fact that we don’t know a ton at the moment.”

The U.S. Coast guard has dispatched four boats, two planes and seven helicopters to the site after the discovery of the explosion. The Coast Guard is now reporting that there is a mile-long sheen of oil spreading from the burning platform. And in related oil industry news, the government of Bahamas has suspended consideration of all applications for oil exploration and drilling in the waters of the Bahamas. The island nation’s Ministry of Environment said that a stringent set of environmental rules would need to be put in place before it considered applications.