By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN
Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - The
Coast Guard on Saturday evening called off its search for two workers
missing after a fire broke out on an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico
on Friday, badly burning four other workers while evoking memories of
the deadly 2010 Gulf oil spill.
Chief Petty Officer Bobby
Nash told The Associated Press that the search was ended at about 5:25
p.m. CST Saturday. Helicopters had been searching for the missing
workers from the air, while a cutter searched the sea.
The blaze erupted Friday as
workers were using a torch to cut an oil line on a platform owned by
Houston-based Black Elk Energy about 20 miles (40 kilometers) southeast
of Grand Isle, La.
Four workers were severely
burned, though Black Elk Energy spokeswoman Leslie Hoffman said their
burns were not as extensive as initially feared.
Officials at Baton Rouge
General Medical Center said Saturday that two men remained in critical
condition, while two men remained in serious condition. The four, being
treated in a burn unit, are employees of oilfield contractor Grand Isle
Shipyard and are from the Philippines. The hospital said it and Grand
Isle Shipyard are trying to reach the men's families in the Philippines.
It's unclear whether the
missing men worked for a contractor. Grand Isle Shipyard employed 14 of
the 22 workers on the platform at the time of the incident, WWL-TV in
New Orleans reported. A man who answered the phone at the company's
Galliano, La., office on Saturday said no one was available to comment.
Meanwhile, officials said
no oil was leaking from the charred platform, a relief for Gulf Coast
residents still weary two years after the BP oil spill illustrated the
risk that offshore drilling poses to the region's ecosystem and economy.
Friday's fire sent an
ominous black plume of smoke into the air reminiscent of the deadly 2010
Deepwater Horizon explosion that transformed the oil industry and life
along the U.S. Gulf Coast
James A. Watson, the
director of Louisiana's Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement,
said in a statement Saturday that his agency had begun "an investigation
into the explosion and fire aboard a Black Elk Energy production
platform offshore Louisiana."
"Our thoughts and prayers
are with those injured and missing and their families," Watson said.
"BSEE is committed to determining the direct and indirect causes of the
explosion and will take appropriate enforcement action."
The Deepwater Horizon blaze
killed 11 workers and led to an oil spill that took months to bring
under control. Friday's fire came a day after BP PLC agreed to plead
guilty to a raft of charges in the 2010 spill and pay a record $4.5
billion in penalties.
There were a few important
differences between this latest blaze and the one that touched off the
worst offshore spill in U.S. history: Friday's fire was put out within
hours, while the Deepwater Horizon burned for more than a day, collapsed
and sank.
The Black Elk Energy
facility is a production platform in shallow water, rather than an
exploratory drilling rig like the Deepwater Horizon looking for new oil
on the seafloor almost a mile (1.6 kilometers) deep.
The depth of the 2010 well blow-out proved to be a major challenge in bringing the disaster under control.
The Black Elk platform is in 56 feet (17 meters) of water - a depth much easier for engineers to manage if a spill had happened.
A sheen of oil about a
half-mile (800 meters) long and 200 yards (180 meters) wide was reported
on the Gulf surface, but officials believe it came from residual oil on
the platform.
"It's not going to be an uncontrolled discharge from everything we're getting right now," Coast Guard Capt. Ed Cubanski said.
Hoffman, the Black Elk
Energy spokeswoman, said Saturday that there were still no signs of any
leak or spill at the platform site.
BP's blown-out well spewed
millions of gallons (liters) of oil into the sea, about 50 miles (80
kilometers) southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River on the east
side of the river delta. The crude fouled beaches, marshes and rich
seafood grounds.
After Friday's blaze, 11
people were taken by helicopter to area hospitals or for treatment on
shore by emergency medical workers.
The production platform is
on the western side of the Mississippi River delta. The Coast Guard said
24 people were aboard the platform at the time of the fire.
"The company continues to
cooperate closely with all state and federal agencies," company
officials said in a news release Saturday. "As reported yesterday, this
platform was not in operation and had been shut in since mid-August.
According to visual reports from this morning, there is no visible sheen
in the vicinity of the platform. "
Cubanski said the platform
appeared to be structurally sound. He said only about 28 gallons (106
liters) of oil were in the broken line on the platform.
David Smith, a spokesman
for the Interior Department's Bureau of Safety and Environmental
Enforcement in Washington, said an environmental enforcement team was
dispatched from a Gulf Coast base by helicopter soon after the Coast
Guard was notified of the emergency. Smith said the team would scan for
any evidence of oil spilling and investigate the cause of the explosion.
Black Elk is an independent
oil and gas company. The company's website says it holds interests in
properties in Texas and Louisiana waters, including 854 wells on 155
platforms.
John Hoffman, Black Elk's
president and CEO, said in an email early Saturday morning that he was
leaving Houston for Louisiana to assist in the investigation and help
the families of the missing and injured workers.
"My entire focus is the families and workers," he wrote. "Nothing else matters at this point."
___
Associated Press Writer Kevin McGill in New Orleans and Jeff Amy in Jackson, Miss., contributed to this story.
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2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not
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