A platform in the Gulf Coast got a gas rig surge. Nobody passed away while a single person was injured. Nobody knows why the blast happened nevertheless. The oil rig explosion took place close to Vermillion Bay, on the coast of Louisiana. The rig is quite far from the Bp gas platform that exploded in April as it is owned by Mariner Energy. Shallow waters contain the Vermillion rig as opposed to the Gulf Coast oil platform that was in deep water.
One hurt in oil rig explosion
Only one person was reported to be hurt within the surge of the oil rig. 13 individuals did end up overboard after the drilling rig erupted. The brand new York Times reports that the Coast Guard got more than one report of a gas rig explosion after 9 a.m.. It was about an hour before helicopters and Coast Guard vessels started arriving. The Coast Guard rescued 13 workers. All of them were accounted for. Since the Deepwater oil rig surge killed 11, it is surprising that only a single person was injured.
Shallow waters
The Vermillion Oil Rig 380 wasn’t drilling nearly as deep as the Deepwater Horizon oil rig was. The Vermillion oil rig sits atop only 340 feet of water, about 100 miles (80 nautical miles) off the Louisiana coast. According to CNN, the oil rig had previously been producing 9.2 million cubic feet of natural gas and 1,400 barrels of oil per day on average. The Coast Guard is intending first to get the fire out. Immediately after the news of the explosion, shares for Mariner Energy dropped by 5 percent.
Offshore drilling
Debate over offshore drilling has been hot for a when. It has been years. Everyone gets worried when an oil platform explodes. They worry that there are too many environmental risks with the danger also there. Though British Petroleum has stepped up to the plate to take responsibility for the oil spill, resource extraction businesses rarely clean up their own messes, and taxpayers often get stuck with an additional Superfund site.
CNN
edition.cnn.com/2010/US/09/02/louisiana.oil.rig.explosion/?hpt=T2#fbid=QdDzKvaTDgY and wom=false
NY Times
nytimes.com/2010/09/03/us/03rig.html?partner=rss and emc=rss
