Mariner Energy Oil Rig Explosion Highlights Drilling Dangers

Mariner Energy Oil Rig Explosion in Gulf of Mexico Spurs Talk of Action … and Cynicism

Another oil rig explosion – this platform owned by Mariner Energy – has threatened the Gulf of Mexico, 80 to 200 miles west of the BP Deepwater Horizon spill. The first picture of the burning platform is here. And then there are words from the Associated Press:

The Coast Guard is saying that a mile-long oil sheen is spreading from the site off an offshore petroleum platform that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico off Louisiana …

The Coast Guard said no one was killed Thursday in the explosion. The blast was spotted by a commercial helicopter flying over the site.

All 13 people aboard the rig were found floating in the water in survival gear.

So no one has apparently died, and the spill likely will not cause an environmental disaster on a BP-like scale – though a sheen of oil a mile long sounds pretty awful to me. And while the company says there is no spill, hmmm, why do I not trust them? More from the AP:

The platform is a fixed petroleum platform that was in production at the time of the fire, according to a homeland security operational update obtained by The Associated Press.

The update said the platform was producing about 58,800 gallons of oil and 900,000 cubic feet of gas per day. The platform can store 4,200 gallons of oil.

But the real impact may be political (Mariner’s shares are also plummeting). Is this the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back on offshore drilling? Newsweek says maybe:

Still, it could give momentum to the environmental lobby, only weeks after its hopes for comprehensive climate legislation were snuffed out by uncompromising Republicans and disorganized Democrats in Congress. As Tim Warman, an executive director at the National Wildlife Federation, will point out in the pages of next week’s issue of NEWSWEEK, this accident is hardly an anomaly. According to a report recently published by the organization, there were more than 1,400 offshore oil-related accidents from 2000 to 2007 alone, and they killed 41 people.

Or is the energy industry, the drill baby drill crowd, the squabbling politicians and indifferent consumer just too much? Max Fisher at The Atlantic seems to think so:

Despite strong encouragement from many liberals and environmental activists, that crisis did not securesweeping energy reform legislation or the full Democratic backing of long-sought cap and trade proposals. Even President Obama’s offshore drilling moratorium was initially knocked down by a state court. In the wake of that long and difficult episode, many are greeting this most recent event with deep, almost macabre cynicism about our ability to learn from disaster.

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