A fire burns on a Gulf oil platform Friday, Nov. 16, 2012, after an explosion on the rig, in the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast. An explosion and fire ripped through a Gulf oil platform Friday as workers used a cutting torch, sending at least four people to a hospital with burns and leaving two missing in waters off Louisiana.NEW ORLEANS – The Coast Guard was searching Friday for two workers missing after a fire erupted on an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico, sending an ominous black plume of smoke into the air reminiscent of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion that transformed the oil industry and life along the coast.
The fire, begun while workers were using a torch to cut an oil line, critically injured at least four workers who had burns over much of their bodies.
The images were eerily similar to the massive oil spill that killed 11 workers and took months to bring under control. It came a day after BP 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 with the Deepwater Horizon explosion that killed 11 workers and began one of the nation’s biggest environmental disasters: Friday’s fire was put out within hours, rather than burning for more than a day and causing the rig to collapse and sink. It’s a production platform in shallow water, rather than an exploratory drilling rig looking for new oil on the seafloor almost a mile deep.
Still, the accident was a vivid reminder of the dangerous business of offshore drilling and the risk it poses to the Gulf of Mexico’s ecosystem and shoreline.