NBC News – by Christopher Nelson and Henry Austin
A Gulf of Mexico drilling rig has partially collapsed off the coast of Louisiana after catching fire because of a ruptured natural gas well, U.S. regulators said on Wednesday.
Firefighters are continuing to tackle the blaze, which broke out after a blowout on the Hercules 265 natural gas platform at around 10:45 p.m. local time Monday.
Eileen Angelico, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, said no one was on board when the fire started and it was not known what sparked it.
She said an investigation into the cause of incident was “well underway”
The 44-strong crew who were evacuated on two lifeboats, after the gas began spewing to the surface, will be interviewed about how they lost control of the well, she added. None of them were injured, NBC station WDSU reported.
The beams supporting the derrick and portable drilling rig floor have folded and have collapsed over the rig structure, operated by Hercules Offshore.
Under bureau direction, Walter Oil & Gas Corp has begun preparations to move a jack-up rig on location to drill a relief well, the BSSE said in a statement. The company was expected to submit a permit application for that relief well on Wednesday night.
Both BSEE and Coast Guard Surveyed the fire from the air this morning to assess the situation.
A “very light sheen that dissipates quickly” was seen in the ocean near the rig, according to a BSEE/Coast Guard statement..
It appears that there are few environmental dangers evident in the collapse of a natural gas platform that is burning to the waterline more than 50 miles off the coast of Louisiana. NBC’s Brian Williams reports.
Experts from Wild Well Control, who specialize in tackling rig fires are also being consulted on the best way to fight the fire.
Walter Oil & Gas reported to the BSEE that the rig was completing a “sidetrack well” — a means of re-entering the original well bore, Angelico said earlier.
Sidetrack wells are sometimes drilled to remedy a problem with the existing well bore.
“It’s a way to overcome an engineering problem with the original well,” Ken Medlock, an energy expert at Rice University’s Baker Institute told the Associated Press.
“They’re not drilled all the time, but it’s not new.”
In 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded off the Louisiana coast, killing 11 workers and eventually spewing millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/07/24/19652537-gulf-rig-partially-collapses-as-fire-rages?lite
These people don’t care how much damage or death they cause. It’s just a race to steal resources as cheaply as possible before the chessboard is thrown, so no safety measures are taken.
This I must ask. Is this rig, (the one on fire now) the same ‘gas well’ that ‘blew out’ weeks ago?
Or is this, a ‘second’ run away gas well?