U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Scott Lloyd |
The New Orleans Times-Picayune reported the search for the 11 missing workers in oil rig explosion will go through the night. The U.S. Coast Guard will continue the search for the missing people through the night.
"We have no idea where they are," said Rear Adm. Mary Landry, commander of the Coast Guard's 8th District. "We will continue searching as long as it is reasonable that we might still find someone."
The 11 remain missing nearly 24 hours after the oil drilling rig they were working on exploded and caught fire in the Gulf of Mexico last night. The Deepwater Horizon rig had a 126-person crew.
The rig is leaking 13,000 gallons of sweet crude an hour, but according to Landry nearly all of it is being consumed in the still raging fire.
"We are only seeing minor sheening on the water," she said. "We do not see a major spill emanating from this incident."
U.S. Coast Guard photo |
Flames from the rig fire shot up to 200 feet in the air while firefighters about five private fireboats struggled to extinguish the raging inferno. "
It's burning pretty good and there's no estimate on when the fire will be put out," Senior Chief Petty Officer Mike O'Berry, a Coast Guard spokesman, told BBC News last night.
The NY Times reported the rig is listing. Lt. Cmdr. Cheri Ben-Iesau, an external affairs officer with the Coast Guard said the rig was listing due to water from firefighting efforts, but that it did not appear to be in danger of capsizing.
"They have gotten an armada of pollution response gear headed that way" to deal with any potential oil leak, Ben-Iesau said.
"We’ve had hurricanes and fires on the rigs, but I can’t remember that we ever had this type of explosion and definitely not on this type of rig," said the Plaquemines Parish president, Billy Nungesser.
The smoke cloud above the Gulf of Mexico could be seen for more than 25 miles away. Michael DeMocker / The Times-Picayune |
Multiple Coast Guard helicopters, airplanes, and cutters were part of the rescue response to the rig 52 miles southeast of Venice, Louisiana on Tuesday night. The Times-Picayune reported:
Seventeen workers, including three with critical injuries, were taken by helicopters to hospitals across the region after the Tuesday night explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig, which had 126 crewmembers onboard, the Coast Guard said.
Ninety-eight rescued workers were on vessels expected to reach Port Fourchon on Wednesday night to be reunited with anxious family members gathering there.
The Deepwater Horizon rig is owned by Transocean Ltd, a Swiss company and the world's largest offshore drilling contractor, and it has been leased by BP since 2007 for about $500,000 per day.
Transocean has no record safety violations in the past five years according to an Occupational Safety and Health Administration website search. "BP has two open cases and 27 closed cases in the last five years in the United States" and last year, BP was fined $87 million by OSHA for a Texas refinery explosion in 2005.
The cause of this explosion will not be investigated by OSHA because the rig is in international waters an OSHA spokeswoman told the Times-Picayune. However, the U.S. agency that oversees offshore drilling, the U.S. Minerals Management Service, the Department of the Interior, and the Coast Guard will investigate the cause of the explosion, according to Deputy Interior Secretary David Hayes.
AP video of Adrian Rose, Transocean’s vice president for quality, health, safety and the environment. |
Bloomberg News reported that Transocean suspects a 'blowout' may have caused the rig fire.
"There was undoubtedly some abnormal pressure buildup," Rose said. "As oil or gas came up, it expanded rapidly and ignited. This is an assumption. We still don’t know exactly the cause."
Geneva-based Transocean and London-based BP will investigate the cause of the explosion, Rose said.
"The fire is still burning," David Rainey, BP’s vice president for Gulf of Mexico production said. "It ebbs and flows, it goes up and down, it’s a hot fire. Our effort must be to put the fire out."
The National Weather Service reported the smoke plume from the rig fire is visible to weather satellites.
The rig is a floating, exploratory drilling rig built in 2001 in South Korea by Hyundai Heavy Industries Shipyard. It is 396 feet long and 256 feet wide and can operate in water depths up to 8,000 feet. According to the Times-Picayune:
The Deepwater Horizon is used for drilling and does not actually produce any oil. When BP has sufficiently explored the area and wants to begin extracting oil, it will use different equipment.
Three weeks ago, the Obama administration eased a ban on offshore oil drilling that opened up part of the Atlantic coast and more of the Gulf of Mexico to exploratory drilling.
My thoughts tonight are for the missing 11 crew members and their families and loved ones. May the Coast Guard find the missing 11 safe and alive.