Mariner Energy Oil Platform Explodes In Gulf

NEAL CONAN, host:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington.

One of the stories we're following here today at NPR News: the offshore rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, a production platform about a hundred miles off the coast of Louisiana.

NPR's Jeff Brady joins us on the line from Denver where he's been following that story. Jeff, good of you to be with us.

JEFF BRADY: Yes, thank you.

CONAN: And with the memory of the last big explosion in the Gulf still fresh, listeners might here this and wonder if we're in for another spill.

BRADY: Yeah, this is a little different, still very serious. It happened about 100 miles south of Vermillion Bay in Louisiana about 9:15 this morning, local time. This rig is in about 320 feet of water, and apparently a crew was - they were painting and cleaning a production platform. There was an explosion above them. And there's some kind of a oil tank up above them there. And there was an explosion near that. The people jumped into the water, and a commercial helicopter spotted them, reported it to the Coast Guard. And the good news is that no one was seriously hurt.

And so far, not - there's been about a mile-long sheen that's been reported on the water. And that means it's not, you know, thick oil like we saw from the Deepwater Horizon incident. And this is really a different situation because this was a natural gas well. It's not - there is a little bit of oil that comes out of that well but not a whole lot. It's mostly natural gas.

CONAN: And you mentioned 340 feet of water. The Deepwater Horizon, that was 5,000 feet. That's an enormous difference.

BRADY: Sure. And 340 feet, at one point, that used to be considered deepwater, but that's no longer considered deepwater. That's pretty run-of-the-mill stuff.

CONAN: What do we know about the company that owns this production platform?

BRADY: Well, Mariner Energy, they're based in Houston. They're an independent oil and gas company, and that means they're not one of the huge multinational players, you know, the names that we all know. They're still a pretty big player in the Gulf of Mexico, that's where about 85 percent of their production comes from. Last February, they produced the equivalent of 63,000 barrels of oil from the Gulf of Mexico. They have an interest in 350 federal leases there in the Gulf. They're operating about 110 of them. It's - as we said a minute ago, it's involved in deepwater drilling, but this particular incident was not in deepwater.

And probably the biggest thing for them right now is that in April, just a few days before the Deepwater Horizon accident, it was announced that Mariner was going to be taken over by a larger company, Apache Corporation, in a deal that's worth about $4 billion. That, of course, creates some sensitivity here because there are all sorts of approvals from regulators and shareholders that are still needed.

I talked with a spokesman for Apache this morning though and he said the deal is expected to close within six weeks.

CONAN: So just to recap: an explosion and fire at a oil - at a platform in the Gulf of Mexico, in shallow water, 13 people were there. They are all reported okay. A sheen of oil spreading about a mile, but it is not believed to be heavy oil in the Gulf.

BRADY: Exactly right. And I think what we're going to start looking at now is this company's safety record. They've had a string of accidents over the last couple of years. 2008 was a pretty bad year for them. There was one accident that involved a fatality off the Coast of Galveston. But that - I've been plowing through some of those government records right now, and we're going to get a better idea of what this company's safety record was.

CONAN: Stay tuned to NPR News for more details on that story. And, of course, much more, later today on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. Jeff, thanks very much.

BRADY: All right, thank you.

CONAN: NPR's Jeff Brady, joining us from Denver. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.