No Leaks of Oil from Ocean Saratoga Drilling Rig - MarketWatch
This is a follow-up to the video posted widely yesterday by a pilot who did not understand what he was seeing, and a caution - we should wait for the facts of a situation to emerge before going ballistic.
I don’t know what it was that pilot saw or filmed; but whatever it was, it appears that his report of a new major oil leak is simply not accurate.
The platform is not a drilling platform; it is a production platform.
The Ocean Saratoga rig is NOT LEAKING. The work going on at that rig is a well intervention program necessitated by damage done by a hurricane, which resulted in a subsurface mudslide triggered by storm surges with 100 foot waves. There is an undersea containment system collecting oil; and the boats seen were not putting out dispersants; they were collecting oil from undersea storage tanks, a regularly scheduled ongoing operation.
HOUSTON, Jun 08, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Diamond Offshore Drilling, Inc. (DO 57.25, 0.31, 0.54%) today confirmed that there have been no leaks of hydrocarbons from the semisubmersible drilling rig Ocean Saratoga. The rig is under contract to Taylor Energy Company LLC and engaged in the process of plugging and abandoning wells damaged when a Taylor Energy production platform was toppled during Hurricane Ivan in 2004.
As previously announced by Taylor Energy today, Taylor is continuing its ongoing well intervention program, using the Diamond Ocean Saratoga, with full approval from Unified Command. The well intervention program at Mississippi Canyon Block 20 is the result of the destruction of a production platform caused by a mudslide triggered by Hurricane Ivan. The platform was toppled by a subsurface mud slide triggered by storm surges with 100 foot waves.
As reported by Taylor Energy, the wells were covered by more than 100 feet of mud and sediment and only four wells were capable of production without pressure assistance. The associated surface sheen was minimal and never made landfall. As a result of deploying three subsurface containment domes and performing six successful well interventions, the initial average observed sheen volume of nine gallons per day has been substantially reduced.
Unidentified aircraft took photos this weekend that incorrectly reported an oil leak coming from the drilling rig Ocean Saratoga. At the time of these photos, Taylor Energy was actually conducting marine operations on site with a 180 foot dynamically positioned workboat for regularly scheduled subsea containment system drainage. The tanks mistakenly characterized as containing dispersants on the boat’s deck, were actually tanks to store and transport the collected oil as it was pumped from the underwater storage system.
“The effort is continuing as directed by the Unified Command,” said Will Pecue, President of Taylor Energy. “We have been working consistently and successfully with MMS and the U.S. Coast Guard to address the resulting environmental impacts of one of the ten most intense hurricanes ever recorded by the National Weather Service.