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Vermilion Bay Explosion Update: Rig Fire Put Out, Oil Sheen Still Unconfirmed [SATELLITE IMAGE]
By Carl Franzen - AOL News(Sept. 3) -- The fire on the Vermilion 380 oil platform that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday has been successfully put out, the U.S. Coast Guard reported in an update late Thursday night. Here's a satellite image of the fire shortly after it broke out Thursday, via NASA: According to the press release from the Coast Guard. Mariner Energy, the owner of the platform, deployed three firefighting vessels to the scene and extinguished the fire. Coast Guard vessels and aircraft on scene saw no evidence of sheen or leaks, and Mariner Energy reported that the platform had been shut ...
What Exploded Off Vermilion Bay: An Oil Rig or a Platform?
By David Knowles - AOL News(Sept. 2) -- As news broke on Thursday of yet another explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, several media outlets proclaimed that an "oil rig" had gone up in flames, echoing the devastating accident at BP's Deepwater Horizon rig. But as the story unfolds, the U.S. Coast Guard is taking pains to draw a distinction between oil rigs and oil platforms. "It's an oil platform, not a drilling rig," Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Masachi told Surge Desk on Thursday. The difference, according to Masachi, is that the structure owned by Mariner Energy was used for processing oil, not drilling it. But ...
Oil Platform Explosion Causes Panic Over Unconfirmed New Spill
By Steven Hoffer - AOL News(Sept. 2) -- Initial reports suggest that today's Gulf Coast oil platform explosion is not the beginning of a second major gulf oil spill disaster -- let alone one on the scale of the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion, which killed 11 (as opposed to today's good news that all 13 workers were saved). Yet many around the Web are reacting under the panicked assumption that the new incident marks the beginning of yet another oil-soaked ordeal. According to initial reporting from The Associated Press, the homeland security operations update indicates that the Mariner Energy platform located 90 miles ...
Coast Guard: New Gulf Oil Spill Will Take More Than a Week to Plug
By David Knowles - AOL News(July 29) -- When it comes to the oil spills of 2010, sometimes it feels as if we're taking one step forward, two steps back. After initially announcing that the Barataria Bay oil spill might be contained this week, U.S. Coast Guard officials now say that the year's second spill in the Gulf of Mexico will take an estimated 10 to 12 days to stop. Wild Well Control of Harlan Harahan, La., the company contracted to shut off the gushing rig in Bayou St. Denis, announced that the additional time is needed to stop the oil from flowing into the shallow gulf waters off the coast of Louisiana, The ...
Report: Oil Rig Workers Scared to Report Safety Problems
By Lauren Frayer - AOL News(July 22) -- A secret survey conducted aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig in the weeks before it exploded reveals that workers had safety concerns but feared punishment if they reported any problems, The New York Times reports. The rig's owner, Transocean Ltd., commissioned the survey in the weeks before the April 20 explosion that killed 11 workers and triggered America's worst ever oil spill. Workers said they "often saw unsafe behaviors on the rig" and believed the company prioritized drilling at the expense of planned maintenance. "Run it, break it, fix it," one worker was quoted as ...
'Mystery Plumber' May Have Solved BP Oil Spill
By David Knowles - AOL News(July 16) -- When you've got a leak, you call a plumber. So perhaps it's not surprising that a "mystery plumber" might be the person ultimately responsible for helping BP stop the massive oil leak 5,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. According to a report from The Christian Science Monitor, six weeks ago, a plumber who did not reveal his identity contacted University of California, Berkeley, engineering professor Robert Bea with an idea for how to fix BP's gushing Deepwater Horizon oil well. The man sent Bea a sketch, which impressed the professor so much that he forwarded it ...
Obama Meets With Families of Deepwater Horizon Victims
By Christopher Weber - Politics DailyThe families of 11 workers killed in the Gulf oil spill disaster visited the White House Thursday, where President Obama consoled them and promised to consider their pleas for more compensation. The private Red Room meeting was to allow Obama to show the victims' relatives that the president, the first lady and the entire administration are "behind them and will be there long after the cameras are gone as they go through their unimaginable grief," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said in a statement. "He told us we weren't going to be forgotten," said Keith Jones, of Baton Rouge, La. "He ...
Obama Privately Meets Relatives of Dead Oil Workers
By not in system - AOL NewsWASHINGTON (June 10) -- Congressional leaders stepped up pressure on oil giant BP to fully compensate economic victims of the Gulf spill as President Barack Obama offered condolences today to the relatives of the 11 rig workers killed in the April 20 explosion. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said "every taxpayer in America must know that BP will be held accountable for what is owed." She spoke at the White House after Obama met with congressional leaders of both parties. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky agreed BP has to clean up the spill. But he said Democratic lawmakers ...
Coast Guard May Burn Parts of Massive Oil Spill
By Doug Simpson - AOL NewsBATON ROUGE, La. (April 27) -- The Coast Guard is considering setting fire to parts of an oil spill that's been growing in the Gulf of Mexico since a massive oil rig exploded and sank off Louisiana's coast last week. Rear Adm. Mary Landry said today that a "controlled burn," far from the coast, is one option she's considering for preventing the spill's spread. She said controlled burns have their risks -- including air pollution -- but have been used successfully to contain previous oil spills. ...
Robot Subs Dispatched to Gulf for Oil Rig Leak
By Doug Simpson - AOL NewsBATON ROUGE, La. (April 26) -- A fleet of robotic submarines is leading efforts to plug an oil well that's spewing crude oil at the Gulf of Mexico's seabed, nearly a mile below the water's surface, although officials conceded the operation might not work. At least four remote-controlled subs are being used in an attempt to shut off the well that's been flowing oil since a drilling platform collapsed and sank into the gulf last week, about 50 miles from the Louisiana coast, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry said. The rig's explosion on Tuesday left 11 of the rig's workers missing and presumed ...
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