I just saw NEWS from the TV showing The Deepwater Horizon Got Explosion and Fire – 12 People Missing. Read news below. I wish they will find those people who are missing soon.
Photo from AP.
12 people are missing and seven injured after an explosion and fire at an an ultra-deepwater oil drilling platform off the coast of Louisiana, the Coast Guard said Wednesday.
Most of the 126 people aboard were believed to have escaped safely after the explosion rocked the rig at about 10 p.m. Tuesday, Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Mike O’Berry said.
The rig was still burning Wednesday morning some 52 miles off the southeastern tip of Louisiana, and was listing about 10 degrees because of the blast, the Coast Guard said.
“It’s burning pretty good and there’s no estimate on when the fire will be put out,” O’Berry said. Fire boats were still battling the blaze at the oil platform, called Deep Water Horizon.
Four helicopters, four Coast Guard boats and a plane were helping search for workers who were unaccounted for Wednesday.
Seven workers were airlifted to a Naval air station near New Orleans, then taken to hospitals. O’Berry said two of the seven were taken to a trauma center in Mobile, Alabama, where there is a burn unit.
Many workers who escaped the rig were being brought to land on a workboat while authorities searched the Gulf of Mexico for any signs of lifeboats.
The Coast Guard and the Minerals Management Service are working together to investigate possible causes of the accident.
“It’s still too early to tell the cause,” said Greg Panagos, spokesman for the owner of the rig, Transocean Ltd. “Our focus right now is on taking care of the people.”
The rig was drilling but was not in production, according to Panagos. The rig was under contract to BP.
O’Berry said Coast Guard environmental teams were on standby in Morgan City, La., to assess any environmental damage once the fire was out.
According to Transocean’s website, the Deepwater Horizon is 396 feet long and 256 feet wide. The rig was built in 2001 by Hyundai Heavy Industries Shipyard in South Korea. The site is known as the Macondo prospect, in 5,000 feet of water.
The rig is designed to operate in water depths up to 8,000 feet and has a maximum drill depth of about 5.5 miles. It can accommodate a crew of up to 130.
Click for more from Fox8live.com in New Orleans
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Ref: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/04/21/search-missing-workers-la-oil-rig-blast/
A wait on cement (WOC) not properly performed can hit an experienced crew in Gulf of Mexico on a fifth generation semi as a poorly trained crew in the Nigerian swamp.
According to the little information recorded mebtioned, probably a longer WOC or a proper inflow prior to displace the riser with seawater, might have solved the problem.
It is in our human attitude to think that “it will not happen to me”.
The workers on that semisub unit would probably change their attitude toward life in the near future
As the comments would like to add some extra details to be done prior to disconnect risers. To make sure that cement is thickening process is over on the Caspian Region we run termometer logging tool to get a proper data on status of cement.
Thanks for sharing konwledge
I left a comment yesterday (05-05-2010) and can not find it today. Please advise – wy it is not here today?
I just approved it : )