According to the New York Times:
Coast Guard Says Oil Rig Exploded in Gulf of Mexico, A.P. Reports
An offshore oil rig exploded on Thursday in the Gulf of
Mexico, west of the site of the April blast that caused the
massive oil spill, the Coast Guard told the Associated Press.Coast Guard Petty Officer Casey Ranel said that the blast was
reported by a commercial helicopter company on Thursday
morning. Seven helicopters, two airplanes and four boats are
en route to the site, about 80 miles south of Vermilion Bay
along the central Louisiana coast.
UPDATE:
The Seattle Times reports:
The Coast Guard reports oil sheen spreading from Gulf platform explosion.
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.
For the latest on this story, click here.
Update II:
Reuters and other news agencies report that although an oil sheen of “100 feet by 1 nautical mile has been reported at the site” by the Coast Guard, the accident “does not appear to be as serious as BP’s deadly rig explosion and oil spill in April.”
At the moment, the accident does not appear to be another BP-style disaster, said Raoul LeBlanc, a senior director at PFC Energy in Houston.
::
“If it’s an industrial accident and doesn’t involve a well it’s obviously still bad, and we hope that no one has been hurt, but it’s unlikely to have long-term implications for production in the Gulf of Mexico,” LeBlanc said.
However, news of the explosion did help “push up crude oil prices 59 cents, or 0.81 percent, to $74.50 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.”
Sadly, it is also helping to push-up, once more, the rhetoric on both sides of the political spectrum, some on one side already claiming that the other side is trying to make political hay out of the accident, some on the other side perhaps making comments prompting such accusations.
We’ll try to keep it truly “fair and balanced” here.
