The new oil platform fire or explosion in the Gulf of Mexico looks minor in comparison to the BP spill, but there are sure some loud echoes in how it’s being handled. When word first trickled out about Thusday’s platform accident off the Louisiana coast, there were swift assurances from the owner that no oil had leaked, and since the platform pumped mostly natural gas, leaks couldn’t be a problem anyway.
As reported by news service AFP, "There was no immediate sign of an oil spill and everything ‘appears to be’ contained ‘at this time’ [said] Patrick Cassidy, a spokesman for Texas-based rig owner."
Then, a couple of hours later… Oops, there’s an oil sheen about a mile long streaming out of the platform, owned by Mariner Energy, after all. But they can’t yet say that it’s oil leaking from the platform. Maybe it’s just engine diesel. And the crew says it triggered a shutdown before jumping ship.
That sounds exactly like the aftermath of the BP spill, a gradual backtrack from "no leak" through "it might be leaking a little" and ending with admission that it’s the world’s biggest oil spill.
The Coast Guard and the rig owner have all sorts of aircraft monitoring the site, but not a single photo had been released, as of nearly 7 hours after the incident (5 pm EDT update: photos of firefighting boats available). I’m curious whether the crew, like the BP riggers, will be kept in hours-long seclusion out of contact with their families and news media, and pressured to sign liability waivers.
At least in the new accident, it appears the whole crew actually got off alive, if not uninjured (though there were similar reports of all crew members being rescued after the BP blast, even though 11 had died). And the platform is in shallow water, not the 5,000-foot depth of BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig. It’s also an older production platform, not sitting on million-barrel volumes of oil under high pressure.
So the outcome ought to be much less catastrophic, knock wood. But given the scrutiny of wells and platforms after the BP spill, how could a major, jump-for-your-life accident like this even happen?
*Update 7 pm EDT: Coast Guard says there¿s no oil visible.
