Offshore Oil Platform Explodes In Gulf Of Mexico West of BP Deepwater Horizon Explosion Site

There are conflicting reports of an oil slick appearing in the Gulf of Mexico as a fire continues to blaze after an explosion on a second oil platform. The blast is believed to have ripped through one of the wells on the Mariner Energy platform, west of the site where BP's Deepwater Horizon rig exploded in April. The oil and gas facility, 80 miles south of Vermilion Bay along the central Louisiana coast, was engulfed in flames. All 13 workers who were on board at the time are thought to have managed to don lifesaving gear and jumed into the water. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the men have now been recovered. Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal told the media: "It is too early to know what sparked the fire." He said the blaze is continuing but according to reports it could soon burn out. The White House has said a government response was ready if needed. Mr Gibbs said: "We obviously have response assets ready for deployment, should we receive reports of pollution in the water." Sky News' US correspondent Greg Milam said: "You can imagine the shudder that a headline like that causes across America. Mariner Energy has hundreds of oil platfroms like this one in the area "The issue is whether there is potential of any pollution, any leak. What we are hearing from Mariner Energy, the owner of the platform, is it's a producing platform not a rig. "Therefore from what we understand at the moment it wouldn't be drilling for oil, although the company has many hundreds of platforms in that region that do drill for oil. "It could be that as a producing platform it might be storing some oil that has been brought up to the surface, but generally those platforms are used as staging points for other parts of the operation." The platform had not recently been in active production and was undergoing maintenance, the US Interior Department said. However, Governor Jindal said there seven wells were believed to have been active at the time of the blast. :: The April 20 Deepwater Horizon explosion, in which 11 workers were killed, became the largest marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry. :: When the rig collapsed it fractured a pipe at the sea bed which released an estimated 53,000 barrels of oil each day into the Gulf of Mexico until it was capped on July 15

2010-09-02T19:09:16+00:00
Duración: 01:40