Fire out at natural gas well in Gulf of Mexico

NEW ORLEANS - A drilling rig that caught fire after a natural-gas blowout in the Gulf of Mexico appears stable now that the fire is out, and there was no sign of any oil sheen on a flyover Thursday morning, a rig company executive said.

“The well essentially snuffed itself out,” said Jim Noe, a vice president with the rig owner Hercules Offshore Inc., speaking in a telephone interview.

The well had blown wild Tuesday, forcing the evacuation of 44 workers. The rig caught fire Tuesday night, and part of it collapsed.

The federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement announced Thursday morning that the well had clogged with sand and sediment, a process called “bridging over” that Noe saidcan commonly happen with shallow-water wells.

Now, officials are focusing efforts on permanently plugging the well and finding out why it blew wild - including why the blowout preventer system on the rig failed to stop the accident.

The blowout occurred about 55 miles off the Louisiana coast at a well operated by Walter Oil & Gas. There were no injuries.

When the fire was raging, officials said they were preparing to drill a relief well nearby to divert the gas and end the blowout and fire. Such a step is probably not necessary now that the fire is out and the well has bridged over, said Adam Bourgoyne, an industry consultant and a former dean of Louisiana State University’s petroleum engineering department.

He said finding some way to seal or cap the well permanently will be much easier now. Well-control experts should now be able to get close to the rig and examine it.

“You never know anything for certain, but usually if it bridges, it doesn’t restart,” Bourgoyne said.

The rig is in 154 feet of water, relatively shallow in terms of offshore drilling.

The Hercules 265 was built in 1982. It was certified by the American Bureau of Shipping until September 2017 and by the Coast Guard through July 4, 2017, according to federal records. It also had a blowout preventer control system approved in November 2010.

Why that system did not prevent the blowout is part of the investigation. Neither Noe nor anyone else connected with the investigation would say anything about the probe.

“Our efforts will now turn to, first, confirming the conditions at the well site, and thento assisting in Walter’s effort to permanently secure and seal the well. We will then focus on a precise analysis of the facts that led to this incident,” Noe said.

Experts had said the environmental impact was expected to be limited, even before the well was blocked, and all 44 workers were safely evacuated.

The rig is called a “jackup rig” because it has four legs extending to the ocean floor to hold it up. Parts of the rig had collapsed as it burned Wednesday, but the structure remained intact.

Because the well involved is a natural gas well, not an oil well, experts said the pollution threats were far less than those posed by some previous accidents.

Information for this article was contributed by Stacey Plaisance of The Associated Press.

Front Section, Pages 2 on 07/26/2013

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