| Nov 29 |
Archive for the 'drilling rig' CategoryOffshore workers to be trained at NASA facility in HoustonNow that offshore drilling has resumed in earnest in the Gulf of Mexico following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster off the coast of Louisiana, energy companies are actively seeking new workers for such rigs and are trying to train them by various means.
One new training strategy is to use the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory located near NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. The 40-foot deep and 200-foot long pool has been used for 15 years by NASA to train astronauts by simulating the absence of gravity in space. NASA now has less use for the facility with the end of the space shuttle program, so it’s contracting with energy companies who want to use it to train workers in offshore survival. (more…) |
| Oct 21 |
Archive for the 'drilling rig' CategoryDeepwater deaths, debacle don’t deter BP from more Gulf drilling The federal government today approved further offshore drilling by British energy giant BP — just 18 months after its Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 offshore workers and spawned the worst oil spill in American history. The new drilling will not be in BP’s Macondo prospect near Louisiana’s coast — site of Deepwater Horizon — but in its Kaskida prospect almost 200 miles from the Louisiana coast. BP will be allowed to drill up to seven new deepwater wells and shift the site of two other wells. (more…) |
| Sep 12 |
Archive for the 'drilling rig' CategoryMissing offshore oil workers found in GulfRescuers have found seven of the 10 offshore oil workers wh Two bodies also were found, but they have not been identified. A search for the remaining missing men continued. The 10 offshore workers used a small escape life raft to evacuate the liftboat, or jack-up rig, in the Bay of Campeche Thursday. Mexican state-run oil company Pemex and the Mexican navy began a search, which Sunday yielded the discovery of seven workers 51 miles from shore. |
o evacuated a liftboat in the southern | Apr 21 |
Archive for the 'drilling rig' CategoryHouston’s Transocean oil platform drilling rig fire may merit worker lawsuits
(See remarkable first-hand images from the fire at this link.) |
Tragically, a fire erupted Tuesday night aboard an offshore oil rig drilling platform owned by Houston’s Transocean Ltd. and leased by BP PLC. As many as 15 oil platform workers were missing as of Wednesday morning, but were being searched for by the U.S. Coast Guard. As many as seven offshore oil rig workers were reportedly critically injured and transported to hospitals in Louisiana and Alabama.