[R-G] Here We Go Again: Another Rig Explosion

[Romi Elnagar]

Here We Go Again: Another Rig Explosion
						by Stephen Lendman / September 4th, 2010


			
			
				Drilling means spilling, hundreds of annual incidents, most 
small, unreported, yet their cumulative effect is devastating, what the 
industry and nightly news won’t mention or explain. 


On February 25, 2009, Environmental Research web.org writer Kate Ravilious did, headlining “Small unreported oil spills add up to major damage,” saying:

Big spills make headlines while small ones “often go unnoticed and 
unreported. But these little slicks could be just as damaging to the 
environment as large spills, according to new research findings.”

Barcelona, Spain Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya Professors Jose
 Redondo and Alexei Platonov developed a way to spot spills from 
satellite images. They show that “small oil spills are very common, and 
when added together they become comparable to large” ones. Their 
frequency makes them damaging, yet little about them is reported.

Studying European waters alone, they determined that major spills 
happen every few years, large ones three or four times a year, and 
smaller ones virtually daily. Extrapolated globally over time amounts to
 a major environmental problem, compounded by many small incidents and 
natural seepage — as much as 14 million barrels a year globally 
offshore.

“For example, it seems that there are four to five times more spills 
(large and small) in East Asia than in European Coastal waters,” and 
Middle East ones experience “significantly more spills.” Most often, 
negligence to cut costs is why.

According to Redondo and Platonov, “the cumulative effect and toxic 
dose (of small spills) is the same as a large spill, and will be 
detected in the long run,” as well as their environmental damage, slowly
 destroying the health of global waters.

Charles Clusen, Natural Resources Defense Council National Parks and 
Alaska Projects director believes up to 500 spills happen annually and 
will increase with greater production, plus natural seeps adding more. 
According to former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminstration 
(NOAA) supervisory researcher Jeff Short:

“Once you have a spill, you are pretty much screwed. That’s because 
oil spreads on water at a rate of one-half a football field per second. 
Recovery can take decades.”
 
Another expert says offshore spills cause more damage than a 
terrorist attack. They’re unacceptable risks — reason enough to ban all 
shallow and deep water drilling and strictly regulate the rest. Besides 
daily spills, the Gulf of Mexico alone has experienced over 500 oil rig 
fires since 2006, most never reported, the latest on September 2. More 
on it below.
Exhibit A in Alaska was the Prince William Sound Exxon-Valdez 
incident. After over 20 years of natural weathering, it remains an 
environmental and human catastrophe, and it was minor compared to BP’s 
greatest ever environmental crime.

On land, drilling is hazardous, but offshore requires complex 
technology, greatly increasing the risks. According to UC Berkeley 
Engineering Professor Robert Bea:

“This is a pretty frigging complex system. You’ve got equipment and 
steel strung out over a long piece of geography starting at the surface 
and terminating at 18,000 (or more) feet below the sea surface. So it 
has many potential weak points,” compounded by negligence to cut costs. 
“Just as Katrina’s storm surge damage found weaknesses in those piles of
 dirt — the levees — gas likes to find weakness in anything we connect 
to that source.”
Drilling is a dirty, dangerous business. The long-term harm greatly 
outweighs the benefits.
 Besides spills and other accidents, the 
ecological damage is immense, contaminating waters and shorelines. 
Drilling releases toxic muds, containing poisonous heavy metals, 
including mercury, cadmium and lead, as well as dangerous amounts of 
arsenic, benzene and radioactive minerals. According to the EPA:

Drilling “may leave behind waste containing concentrations of 
naturally-occurring radioactive material (NORM) from the surrounding 
soils and rocks. Once exposed or concentrated by human activity, (it) 
becomes Technologically-Enhanced NORM or TENORM. Radioactive materials 
are not necessarily present in the soils at every well or drilling site.
 However, in some areas of the country, such as the upper Midwest and 
Gulf Coast states, the soils are more likely to contain radioactive 
material.”

“Radioactive wastes from oil and gas drilling take the form of 
produced water, drilling mud, sludge, slimes, or evaporation ponds and 
pits. It can also concentrate in the mineral scales that form in pipes 
(pipe scale), storage tanks, or other extraction equipment.”

Naturally occurring radioactive materials include radium and radon 
gas, potent carcinogens that accumulate in water, wildlife, plants and 
vegetables, and take 1,600 years to degrade. Combined with other toxins 
(after decades of offshore drilling) has left vast areas of global 
waters dangerously toxic — why nothing in them should be eaten.

The Latest Reason to Ban All Offshore Drilling
On September 2, operating 100 miles south of Louisiana’s Vermilion 
Bay in shallow water (several hundred feet deep), a rig operated by 
Mariner Energy, Inc. (a Houston-based independent oil and gas producer) 
exploded and caught fire, a company press release saying:
The company “confirms that a fire has occurred at a production 
platform located on Vermilion Block 380, approximately 100 miles from 
the Louisiana coast. All 13 members of the crew have been evacuated and 
safely accounted for. No injuries have been reported. In an initial 
flyover, no hydrocarbon spill was reported.”

False. Workers told rescuers they heard a blast, saw a fire, and had 
to jump into Gulf waters to be safe. One injury was reported. The Coast 
Guard said a mile-long, hundred foot wide oil sheen was seen near the 
site, then later about-faced saying no oil was spotted. It’s there and 
spreading, but there’s no indication how much or whether the release was
 contained. First reported at 9:20AM, the fire was extinguished about 
six hours later.

Mariner’s rig is a production, not drilling platform like BP’s. At 
year end 2009, it produced 47% oil and 53% natural gas. The company has 
interests in nearly 350 offshore leases, including over 80 in deep water
 down to 7,100 feet. More than 110 are in development.
According to the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy 
Management Regulation and Enforcement (BOE, formerly the Mineral 
Management Service — MMS), federal authorities cited Mariner and its 
related operations for 10 Gulf accidents in the past four years. They 
included platform fires, oil spills and a blowout. In a 2008 incident, 
one employee sustained serious injuries. In early 2010, the company was 
fined $55,000 for safety violations.

Consider its history. As a former Enron unit, it faced bankruptcy, 
saved only by private equity investors buying it at fire sale prices. On
 April 15, Apache Corp., America’s largest independent oil and gas 
producer, announced plans to buy Mariner, calling the deal “a strategic 
step and a natural extension into the deepwater Gulf… provid(ing) an 
exciting new platform for growth….” The agreement is still on, Apache 
saying it’s monitoring developments closely but hopes to complete its 
acquisition in a matter of weeks.

Final Comments
Despite offshore drilling dangers; the industry’s history of 
violations, accidents, and spills, some major like BP’s; and the growing
 contamination of waters and coastal areas, the rage to drill is 
unabated, few in Congress willing to challenge Big Oil’s muscle.

After the Mariner explosion, however, environmental groups are 
flexing theirs, wanting offshore drilling banned, Greenpeace USA’s 
oceans campaign director, John Hocevar, saying:
“How many times are we going to gamble with lives, economies and 
ecosystems? It’s time we learn from our mistakes and go beyond oil,” for
 sure stop drilling offshore to get it.
Jackie Savitz, senior campaign director for the environmental group 
Oceana agrees, saying: “We think all offshore oil drilling should be 
banned, but not just the deepwater drilling. Even oil spills in shallow 
water are bad. It doesn’t have to be in deep water to be a disaster.”
Environment America’s Mike Gravitz said Obama “need(s) no further wake-up call to permanently ban new drilling.”

In a September 2 press release, the Center for Biological Diversity said:
“Today’s explosion… is the latest in a string of accidents in recent 
decades illustrating the dangers of offshore drilling in shallow (or 
deep) waters.” It called for expanding the moratorium, explaining that 
“Offshore drilling is an inherently unsafe, toxic activity that, every 
day, puts people and the environment at risk.” Only one solution can 
work — a total ban.

After the BP incident, a coalition of 14 environmental groups, 
including the Center for Biological Diversity and Greenpeace, wrote 
Obama, urging a permanent moratorium, saying:

“In response to the BP drilling disaster, we specifically urge you to
 establish a presidential drilling moratorium which would permanently 
restore coastal protections for areas currently not leased for offshore 
oil and gas drilling, and cancel exploratory drilling permits for the 
Beaufort and Chukchi seas. Furthermore, we urge you to use the full 
force of your office to push for a comprehensive bill that cuts oil 
consumption, curbs global warming pollution and shifts us towards clean 
energy.”

The group also called for a “top to bottom review of worker safety, 
blowout avoidance technology, and oil spill clean up plans for 
operations in the Outer Continental Shelf.”
Others believe only a total ban can work, shifting America’s fossil 
fuel addiction to alternative, clean sources. The choice is simple — 
either a healthy, safe environment or one contaminated and destroyed. 
There may be little time left to decide.
				
				Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. Contact him at: lendmanstephen at sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site
  and listen to The Global Research News Hour on 
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http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/09/here-we-go-again-another-rig-explosion/#more-21516