fresno cormorant: 2 missing in wake of Gulf of Mexico oil rig fire (MarketWatch)

Sunday, November 18, 2012

2 missing in wake of Gulf of Mexico oil rig fire (MarketWatch)

By Ronald D. Orol, MarketWatch

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) ? Government officials continued Saturday to search for two workers who were missing after an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast exploded Friday, according to reports.

Commercial vessels spray water to extinguish a fire on board an oil platform operated by Houston-based Black Elk Energy Offshore Operations LLC. 20 miles offshore of Grand Isle, La., in the Gulf of Mexico in this photo provided by the U.S. Coast Guard.

The reports added that four other workers were badly injured in the explosion and evacuated to hospitals in Louisiana.

Houston-based Black Elk Energy Offshore Operations LLC, which owns the platform, said in a statement that their ?thoughts and prayers are with those who are impacted.? The statement added that Black Elk personnel are on the scene and others are on the way.

The incident, reportedly has little risk of transforming into the kind of oil spill that followed the BP /quotes/zigman/247026/quotes/nls/bp BP -0.67% /quotes/zigman/210014 UK:BP -2.07% Deepwater Horizon oil well disaster in 2010. That spill became the largest offshore spill in U.S. history.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the Black Elk oil rig hasn?t produced oil since August.

The BP spill involved drilling a mile deep. Damage claims for that spill still are being litigated. Only Thursday, BP settled civil and criminal allegations with the U.S. government. Read about how BP resolves federal spill charges for $4.5 billion

The Coast Guard said it was looking into the possibility that workers on the Black Elk platform cut into a pipe containing oil while conducting maintenance on the rig, according to reports.

According to The Wall Street Journal, citing a commander coordinating the search and rescue mission for the Coast Guard, rescue workers found two pairs of work boots and a hard hat floating in the water close to the oil rig. Read Wall Street Journal report of oil rig explosion

According to Black Elk?s website, the closely held company has an aggregate interest in 854 wells on 155 platforms located across 430,000 gross acres in Louisiana, Texas and federal waters at depths of less than 10 feet to more than 6,000 feet.

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