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Subscribe to RSSEleven people were injured in the production platform blast and oil spillage was minimal, according to the Coast Guard. NBC's Brian Williams reports.
Updated at 5:56 p.m. ET: Coast Guard crews continued searching Saturday evening for two workers missing after an explosion and fire aboard a Gulf of Mexico oil rig on Friday that was apparently triggered by workers using a blow torch to cut a pipe.
Eleven workers on the rig were airlifted to hospitals after the accident some 17 miles southeast of Grand Isle, La. Four of the injured were in critical condition.
The fire was extinguished a few hours after the blast and Coast Guard Capt. Ed Cubanski told reporters that the platform appeared to be structurally sound. Twenty-two people had been aboard the rig at the time of the accident.
The search and rescue operation is making use of an 87-foot surface vessel assisted by a helicopter, the U.S. Coast Guard told NBC News Saturday night.
The platform was not actively producing oil and a sheen spotted in the water was probably from an estimated 28 gallons of oil that could have spilled when a pipe ruptured, Cubanski said Friday.
It does not appear the incident could lead to a major environmental disaster, added Coast Guard Capt. Peter Gautier.
Gerald Herbert / AP
Damage from the fire aboard a Gulf of Mexico oil rig is seen Friday after the fire was put out.
He said initial reports suggested that the explosion occurred when maintenance workers using a torch cut into a pipe with oil inside.
The platform is a shallow-water production platform, unlike BP's Macondo well that blew out in 2010 in mile-deep water. The Macondo explosion killed 11 workers and caused the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.
The owner of the platform is Houston-based Black Elk Energy. On its website, the company stated that this month it was starting to drill the first of 23 new wells in the Gulf of Mexico.
Last Sunday, The Houston Chronicle named Black Elk Energy one of the top small businesses to work for in Houston based on employee surveys.
In August, the oil and gas company was named one of the fastest-growing privately held companies by Inc. Magazine.
The explosion came a day after BP settled criminal charges in the Macondo disaster by agreeing to pay $4.5 billion in penalties. It still faces up to $20 billion in civil fines.
Black Elk Energy was investigated last August by the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement for an incident in which two employees were dropped 60 feet into Gulf of Mexico waters due to a crane malfunction, Reuters reported. No injuries were reported.
Black Elk also paid a $300,000 civil fine in September, related to a site inspection in 2011 of one of its facilities that revealed it was not complying with regulations.
Federal data also shows a small fire occurred at a Black Elk platform in February of 2011 in the Gulf of Mexico, but was quickly contained.
The company's chief executive, John Hoffman, formerly worked for BP Amoco, according to a report earlier this year in the Houston Business Journal. Hoffman founded Black Elk in 2007, the report said.
Friday's incident could reignite a national debate over safety standards for offshore drilling. After the Horizon spill, the government overhauled offshore drilling regulations and imposed a ban on drilling that lasted for several months.
"BP and the government may have settled criminal matters yesterday, but today's incident shows that increasing safety of offshore drilling and for hard-working men and women is still not a settled matter," Rep. Ed Markey, the ranking Democrat on the House National Resources Committee, said in a statement.
NBC's Edgar Zuniga Jr. as well as Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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If we had spent the money we spent on Iraq (twice) war, over a trillion dollars, on alternative energy we probably would not be importing one drop of oil. Now, that's what an American jihad would look like!
JCC, alternative energy may have been found LONG ago, but will never be implemented until we run out of
fossil fuels.
Why?
Imagine if you make (for example) a small device that could power a home etc. and developed it overnight.
Do you have any idea the chaos you would have caused?
Viewer_Ready is 100% correct. As long as profit is the goal, fossil fuels will be ridden out until they are totally depleted. Then it will be ever so convenient when an alternative is developed just in time (read: pulled out of storage). The only thing that will upset this course of action is if profit is no longer the main goal. What would cause that? WW3, cold war/arms race, space race, alien invasion, whatever would shift the focus from "money" to "beating 'them' ".
Drill baby drill!
@SDC.CLARK That's right, drill baby drill. Forget the saftey reg's, we can always hire more oil workers, hell they are just a number. So yes, drill baby drill, that is the slogan of the right wing labor haters. Always bitching about regulations. Then we see what happens when safety regs aren't followed. BP did the same thing. When will they learn?
let us get "over this"and get to work
Am I the only one who noticed that this company was started by a former BP AMOCO EXECUTIVE? If someone did not learn about safety regulations after the first spill, you should not be in the business. Please, John Hoffman GET IN ANOTHER LINE OF WORK BEFORE ANYONE ELSE GETS KILLED!
ideas
not yell and scream
Here we go again.
yes, here we go.Again
gas prices low $3.11 high $3.29 as 11/16/2012 Gee they don't think is gonna be a BIG one. Reverse psychology? They will say its much bigger or they aren't sure one week before the BIGGEST travel day of the year. You can bet prices will go up because of speculation of it being BIG! Lets not forget Black
FridayThursday too with all the stores being open for Xmas shopping.This is just an industrial accident which happend to be on a oil rig. Welders caused the explosion. This could happen on land just as easily. But Obama will use this as an reason to shut down the oil industry.
That was a ridiculous post; Obama's prudent past actions and enforcement of the existing regulations probably has already saved lives, but my guess is you never worked construction in your life.
Sound regulations, intelligent enforcement, and training, training, training. This is how you minimze injuries in inherently unsafe jobs. I spent 40 years in the Building trades and out of hundreds of accidents, perhaps, 1/2 of 1 percent could not have been prevented. A company and its employee's have to put safety above all else; in the long run they'll be more profitable than taking short cuts. It would appear these men were not trained properly and their supervison was lacking - preventable.
It's Bush's fault !!!
how can I work with you all?
I wonder . . . . Do posted (intelligent) comments on messages boards EVER change another poster's views? Are our views really multi-dimensional points of true dialogue or simply unidirectional knee-jerk venting?
I don't know, I just want to work with someone to get something done
our government has Clean energy technology, tesla, etc. that there is no need to drill oil for corporations continued sky rocketing profits anymore. TIME TO COME CLEAN...JIG IS UP.
THE OIL BELONGS IN AND TO THE EARTH for her to easily shift her plates without cause for earthquakes or tornados. this is what you get when you keep disrespecting our planet!!
GO GOOD GUYS!
Wow, I'm guessing you have the old 4 chamber U.S. bong???
LOL
Oh,Oh, here come higher Gas prices. It doesn't matter that the Gasoline is already in the tanks at the gas station, it will still go up and pretty quick. In fact gas in our area went up Two cents a Gallon since yesterday.
you people cry about every thing yet have no ideas. Just a bunch of cry babies. What is your idea? Givvin its not stepping on someones head?
Oh! Oh! I've seen this episode... isn't it the one where an oil rig explodes, kills a couple of guys, then a massive oil underwater well ruptures, spilling the largest amount of oil the world has ever seen into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico??? Huh... isn't it?
... And the idiots have rung the bell of stupidity AGAIN!
Everyone ... all together, now shout "Sue BP! ... Sue BP!... Sue BP!... Sue BP!"
@SCIENTISTGUY, and your point is???????????????????????
ScientistGuy
Lately, BP has been doing a lot of exploratory work for the Russians. Now wouldn't it break a lot of hearts if the site of the accident is in Cuban waters. No free money. Just a thought.
so true ScientistGuy.
Yet how many of us can make fire uninformed apes I guess
We will never learn! Oil companies are determined to destroy this planet.
This was an industrial accident, nothing more. I hope the workers aren't hurt too badly and that they recover soon. Now let's look at this oil thing. Let's say we have 100 years worth of oil left. We don't, but let's say we do. Sounds like a long time, doesn't it? It's not. Not even close. Hold up your hand i you spent time in the 70's waiting in a gas line. I know my hand is up. Been there, done that, wore the t-shirt. That was almost 40 years ago. Forty years!!! And how far have we gotten on alternative energy sources? And now you say "Don't worry, be happy"? I keep hearing how Obama is going to saddle our kids with debt and you're right to worry about that but what about the yoke they'll have to bear of ever increasing oil prices? And don't tell me "We'll drill our way out of it." That's a temporary solution at best. We need to find the alternative to oil and find it now.
Let's take a step back here.... Seems like there are a lot more deaths and enviromental events happening with these oil rigs than nuke plant that exist. (and don't bring up Japan, they were not that well prepared for what was a disaster of Biblical size).
The petrochemical industry, and the pols who support it, need to be shut down for good. They are robber oil barons, outright thieves, mass murderers and terrorists, polluters, overheating and killing the planet and every living thing on it.
"The company's chief executive, John Hoffman, formerly worked for BP Amoco, according to a report earlier this year in the Houston Business Journal. Hoffman founded Black Elk in 2007, the report said."
Seems he learned his lessons well - do we have yet another case of greed overriding safety concerns? The question seems a valid one in light of the reported past conduct of the company.