So much for THAT rig . . .

Mark sent me these pictures and this note this morning. 

What his company does is lease those rigs to various companies who have leased areas in the gulf to check for oil.  Well the company who was leasing this particular rig is the same company that Mark said a month or so back that he would never work for again because they had overloaded the substructure on his rig against all the rules.  He managed to tell them that the weight was even more than it actually was so they did finally stop adding to it.  If he hadn't done that, they could have had serious problems then, as well!  But after this mess, I'd say he certainly won't have to deal with Walter Oil and Gas again - EVER!  No telling what caused this, but given his opinion of that outfit, it was probably caused by something  they should NOT have been doing.  Time will tell. 

Anyway, here are a bunch of pictures taken just after it happened yesterday.  The NEXT photo batch will be of a rig on FIRE instead of just leaking natural gas.  (And that IS just natural gas, not smoke, in those pictures below.)  I know a lot of those pictures are very similar, but in case someone who actually knows about rigs wants to see something specific, I'm putting them all on here.

2013 July 23, Tuesday

Gulf of Mexico, 100 nm south of New Orleans, LA

News came to us just as we landed from a picturesque six-hour flight on the Sabine River between Texas and Louisiana tracking endangered swallow-tailed kites: the Hercules Offshore drilling platform #265 located about 100 nm south of New Orleans had experienced a blowout this morning around 10am CDT. Lifeboats were used to evacuate 44 workers, none of whom experienced serious injuries. We flew out there at around 2pm and found only about a mile of very light surface sheen to the east of the platform, which would support public statements that "only" natural gas is leaking at this time.

The rest of the facts will become clearer shortly, but for now, here are our photos from the site as of this afternoon. Stay tuned for our high-definition video to be uploaded shortly. As always, our high-resolution photos and videos are available for all uses whose intent is to benefit the Gulf of Mexico and her life.

Special thanks today to Peter Valdez, pilot and employee of Flightline First at New Orleans' Lakefront Airport, for joining us on this flight and helping both with photography and flying!

That isn't smoke, but natural gas.  Mark says the next group of pictures will show flames.



Those "splashes" in the water below the rig above are actually ice -- natural gas dropped into the water.



 

And the inevitable result . . . the gas explodes: