Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Picture of the day: Transocean (NYSE:RIG) rig on fire

An explosion on a deepwater drilling rig working for BP in the Gulf of Mexico last night has left at least seven crewmembers critically injured and 11 still missing as of Wednesday morning. The Deepwater Horizon rig is reported to have had 126 workers on board at the time of the explosion late Tuesday night. The Coast Guard is searching for the missing; at least two workers were airlifted to hospitals with severe burns; the rest of the crew will arrive back to shore by boat today.

The rig, owned by leading deepwater drilling company Transocean, is said to be listing in the water, 50 miles south of the Louisiana coast, and is still on fire. The rig was drilling a well at the time of the explosion. It's unclear at this time what caused the disaster, but the speculation is that the rig likely suffered a blow out while cutting through rock some 18,000 feet down at BP's Macondo prospect in an area known as Mississippi Canyon Block 252.

Just in case you care to see what the rig looks/looked like last night here's a pic (click to enlarge):


2 comments:

bl said...

Very unfortunate news for them and their families. Bless them. Not much sell off...like MEE. Cancelled a VMW 60 MayC 1.05 now 2.5 on an upgrade

Unknown said...

In addition to BP and Transocean now Smith International is involved - http://www.smslegal.com/news/smith-employees-missing-in-transocean-oil-rig-explosion20100424.cfm