Oil sheen spreads from Gulf production rig fire explosion contrasts with massive crude oil leak from the April blowout of a BP well caused an environmental disaster.
Patrick Cassidy, a spokesman for Mariner Energy, said the 13 crew members were painting and water-blasting the production platform when a fire broke out near the top of the facility, where there is an oil storage tank. He said it was not clear what caused the fire, but the crew evacuated. He said there were no injuries and that all 13 crew members were accounted for. One member of the crew was a Mariner Energy employee, and the rest worked for oil service firms.
The largest shareholder in Mariner is John Paulson, a hedge fund manager who shorted subprime mortgage derivatives through Goldman Sachs before the housing market collapse and whose trades were mentioned in the Securities and Exchange Commission case against Goldman. He owned 9.7 percent of the firm at the end of June. Other shareholders include big mutual fund firms Vanguard, Fidelity and Prudential.
In its 2008 annual report, Mariner said the Vermilion 380 field — in 340 feet of water — was its largest in the Gulf of Mexico’s Outer Continental Shelf. At the end of 2008, the estimated proven reserves in the field were half oil and half gas totaling an energy equivalent of 33 billion cubic feet of natural gas.
The Vermilion platform was damaged by Hurricane Ike in 2008, and production was shut down for the first six months of 2009.
