By: Bryan

Bryan — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 18:52:46 +0000

It is possible that hatches were left open when people evacuated and the structure warped from the heat of the fire. There was a supply ship docked at the time, and it took off 100 of the workers, so there may have been large hatches open for unloading and no one secured them on exiting.

A couple of rigs were slammed ashore by Katrina, and they were just towed off after inspection. They are pretty damn tough when sealed.

By: Badtux

Badtux — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 06:07:49 +0000

I am absolutely baffled by the notion of an oil rig sinking. We aren't talking about the Titanic hitting an iceberg here, the pontoons are underwater and full of compartments and you'd have to rupture pretty much all the compartments to make it go glug glug glug. That implies an explosion much larger than what we're being told, but then how did 100 people manage to get off the rig, if the explosion was that large? My suspicion is that we're going to find out that there were some construction issues with this Hyundai oil rig that contributed to this disaster... Disclaimer: While I worked in the oil industry for a while, I was on the refinery and pipeline side of things, so I never saw the offshore rigs first-hand. I was exiting the industry just as the first of the wells drilled by deep-sea rigs came into production. But I still have friends in the industry, and from what they tell me about general construction and safety standards surrounding these things, nothing short of an atomic bomb (or a hurricane, which is more energy than an atomic bomb) should be able to sink one of these rigs... .-= last blog ..Haunted Accordion =-.

Comments on: Oil Spill… What Oil Spill?

By: Bryan

By: Badtux