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Latest Offshore Rig Blast Raises More Questions About Worker & Environmental Safety

Posted byHoumanitarian
Video Link: A look at the safety record of Black Elk Energy
(WWLT 4 News – New Orleans)

Jennifer A. Dlouhy, Fuel Fix
Coming just one day after a legal settlement in connection with the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, Friday’s platform fire off the Louisiana coast drew immediate criticism from oil industry foes, despite few similarities with the BP disaster.

“This is yet another reminder that our work on oil drilling safety is not complete,” said Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass. “This incident raises a number of questions about the nature and adequacy of safety measures on this offshore rig.”

Frances Beinecke, the president of the Natural Resources Defense Council and a member of the presidential commission that investigated the 2010 spill, said the accident is a fresh reminder that “offshore drilling is an inherently dangerous business.”

“Though the BP criminal case is settled, today’s accident makes clear that the hazards of oil and gas drilling are not in America’s rear view,” Beinecke said. “We need stronger safeguards and increased oversight to reduce the risk of accidents, and we need to prioritize safer forms of energy that don’t threaten the lives of our workers and foul our waters.”

In fact, the incident at Black Elk’s facility on Friday appeared very different from the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig two years ago that killed 11 workers and unleashed the nation’s worst oil spill. Unlike the Deepwater Horizon rig, Black Elk’s platform was not drilling; instead, it is an offshore production facility tied to seven production wells. All of those shallow-water wells were shut in for a construction project, which reduces the likelihood of a spill from the oil reservoir itself.

Black Elk Energy CEO John Hoffman told a Houston television station that workers on the platform were cutting a 75-foot pipe at the time of the accident. It contained as much as 75 gallons of produced materials, which could have ignited and could also leak into the Gulf.

Offshore explosions and fires are relatively common. According to the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement that oversees offshore drilling, there have been 74 fires and explosions just this year — and a total of 722 since 2007.
(Read more of this story at Fuel Fix) 

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