HOUSTON – An oil and gas platform in the Gulf of Mexico exploded yesterday, setting off a blaze and a small oil spill, but the accident does not appear to be as serious as BP’s deadly rig explosion and oil spill in April.
The US Coast Guard said an oil sheen of 100ft (30.5m) by one nautical mile had been reported at the site. All 13 crew members on the burning platform were evacuated to another offshore platform, the US Coast Guard said. The fire had been contained but was not yet extinguished, it added.
Platform and field operator Mariner Energy said the crew did not suffer any injuries.
The platform is located more than 90 miles (145km) south of Louisiana’s Vermilion Bay, west of BP’s ruptured Macondo well that killed 11 people and caused the world’s worst offshore oil spill.
At the moment, the incident did not appear to be another BP-style disaster, said Raoul LeBlanc, a senior director at PFC Energy in Houston.
“If it’s an industrial accident and doesn’t involve a well, it’s obviously still bad and we hope that no one has been hurt, but it’s unlikely to have long-term implications for production in the Gulf of Mexico,” Mr LeBlanc said.
The platform, located in 104m (340ft) of water, was undergoing maintenance and was not in active production, the US interior department said. The platform was authorised to produce oil and natural gas.
The cause of the explosion was not known.
The facility averaged 9.2 million cubic feet of natural gas per day and 1,400 barrels of oil and condensate a day during the last week of August, Mariner said.
Company spokesman Patrick Cassidy told CNN that the platform had seven wells that produced both oil and natural gas.
The platform’s output is a small fraction of the 1.6 million barrels of oil the region produces on a daily basis.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said he did not know whether the fire would affect the Obama administration’s current deepwater drilling moratorium.
News of the fire helped to push up crude oil prices 59 cents, or 0.81 per cent, to $74.50 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. – (Reuters)