Posted on 08/05/2005 9:30:45 AM PDT by OESY
Standing 60 feet above sea level on this oil platform 130 miles southeast of New Orleans, Rab Bruce pointed to where the huge wave slammed into a tangle of grated steel and multicolor pipes.
The Petronius deep-water platform, which was hit by a 90-foot wave during Hurricane Ivan last September, is now back on line.
"I was just in shock at the damage," said Mr. Bruce, a longtime field coordinator on Chevron's Petronius deepwater platform, which was hit by a 90-foot wave during Hurricane Ivan last September. "I had never seen anything like this. Everything was busted, dangling and messed up."
Today, with oil prices hitting records and petroleum producers stretched to the limit to meet greater demand from not just the United States but from China, India and other developing countries as well, oil producers worry that hurricanes are as much a risk to a global shortfall in supplies as pipelines blowing up in Iraq or oil workers going on strike in Venezuela.
And with the margin of error so tight, even a temporary disruption of the deepwater platforms, rigs and sub-sea pipelines in the Gulf of Mexico - a region that pumps one-quarter of American oil production - could create big problems for energy producers and consumers alike.
"It's a new version of the butterfly effect," said Larry Goldstein, the president of PIRA Energy Group, an oil consultancy in New York. "A hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico can lead to higher prices around the world. That's how vulnerable oil markets are today to events outside of our control. And it shows how little room there is for errors."
...[M]eteorologists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration... said they now expected an "extremely active season" with up to 21 tropical storms and up to 7 major storms....
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Is this the same one that had pictures of it tilting quite a bit?
What is the article saying, that deep water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and Hurricanes in the Gulf are somehow a new phenomena?
I think the tilting one is/was called Thunder Horse.
No. Tis one was dmaged last year. Thunder Horse, the one we saw recent pics of was damaged (or at least had the ballast shift) last month.
I think the intention is to say there is a greater proportion of our oil coming from the more hurricane susceptible deep-water wells now.
It's just a matter of time and they know it.
Like the airliner transition from prop to jet, it's just one of those things.
The gulf is an infinite supply of crude.
Sounds cost-prohibitive. Any links for this kind of stuff. I'll google later.
The new energy bill is so full of pork that maybe there's something in it about stopping waves in the ocean from occurring?
The above-water portion of the rig is the 2nd superstructure for this platform. The first was accidentally dropped to the bottom while they were attempting construction. Since it's in 1600 ft of water, they didn't pick it up. It's a great place to fish.
Was anybody on it at the time?
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