Photo Credit: 2010 WLOX.

Rescue choppers from New Orleans and Houston are responding along with The Coast Guard. Seven helicopters, two airplanes and four boats are en route to the site.

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Coast Guard Petty Officer Casey Ranel told reporters that the blast was reported by a commercial helicopter company at about 9:30 a.m. CDT Thursday.

The Coast Guard says that 13 people who were on the rig have been accounted for at this time. One is reported injured.

Ranel says it hasn’t been determined whether the structure is a production platform or a drilling rig. He says smoke was reported but it is unclear whether the rig is still burning.

Coast Guard Petty Officer Bill Colclough tells CNN that reports indicate the rig was not actively producing product but he is not sure if there is “any risk of pollution.”

The rig, known as “Vermilion 398,” is owned by Mariner Energy, which is based in Houston, and is in water about 2,500 feet deep. The company has an office in Lafayette.

This recent explosion is west of the Deepwater Horizon explosion that happened on April 20, 2010 which caused a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, claiming the lives of 11 oil rig workers.

Gov. Bobby Jindal will hold a news conference in Baton Rouge at the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness at 12:30 p.m. on the recent rig incident.

Source: WLOX ABC 13

Update:

(Reuters) – Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal said on Thursday afternoon that production from a burning oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico has been shut.

Jindal said operator Mariner Energy’s (ME.N) senior officials told Louisiana officials the flow of oil from the sea floor had been stopped. The fire seen on the platform was from flammable material in storage on the platform.

PLAINTIFF:

Plaintiff is a 24 year old steward assistant who worked for M/V The American Tern at the time of the incident. The plaintiff lives in Houston, Texas and has not been able to return to work since this incident due to the injuries she sustained.

INJURIES  SUSTAINED:

MRI reveals herniated disc at L5/S1. Plaintiff’s surgeon has recommended a partial disectomy L5/S1.

DEFENDANTS:

Apl Maritime, Ltd., whose company is categorized under Deep Sea-Foreign Transport of Freight, is a Delaware corporation whose headquarters are located in Bethesda, Maryland. Tern Shipping Corporation is a Delaware corporation whose headquarters are located in Bethesda, Maryland.

COMMENTS:

The Jones Act allows an injured employee to file suit directly against their employer, and collect money damages, for any of their employer’s negligence which may have caused or contributed to the employee’s injury.  If the company, or a co-employee, was at fault in causing or contributing to your accident and injury, as was the case in Ms. Griffin’s incident, you can collect compensation from your employer for your injury and damages.  This law is very different than the general rule that an employee cannot sue their employer even if the employer caused his injury.

There are two important points to remember in regard to a suit against an employer under the Jones Act. First, in order to recover under the Jones Act it must be proven that the employer or co- employees were negligent. The Jones Act is a fault based statute, meaning that you only collect damages if your employer was at fault. This fault can take many forms including the improper or unsafe acts of your co-employees, an unsafe workplace, or unsafe or improper instructions. It is often easy to show that the injury could have been avoided if the company acted in a safer manner.

The Jones Act allows an injured worker to sue his employer for:

• Pain and suffering
• Mental and emotional anguish
• Past lost wages
• Future loss of earning capacity
• Past & Future Medical Expenses
• And other elements of damages

Unlike the workers’ compensation scheme, maritime law allows for the recovery of maintenance & cure benefits. The failure of the employer to pay for a seaman’s medical care or his “down time” due to an injury or illness, may give rise to a claim for punitive damages under the Atlantic Sounding case decided by the United States Supreme Court. Often times the employee is not aware of these benefits. Also, the Jones Act offers an injured employee a far greater scope for recovery; but it is a fault based system as compared to workmans’ compensation which is not fault based. That is why you need representation early.

The Jones Act applies to employees who are injured in the service of a vessel or fleet of vessels, when they contribute to the mission of this vessel. Under current law, a vessel includes: jack-up rigs, semi-submersible rigs, ships, drill barges, drill ships, spud barges, hopper barges, tankers, tugs, towboats, river casino’s, tug boats, shrimp boats, fishing boats, trollers, crew boats, utility boats, supply boats, floaters, offshore support vessels, water taxies and a host of other types of vessels. If the injured worker is working aboard one of these vessels, and their work contributes, in any way, to the overall mission of that vessel, then they are entitled to sue their employers and/or co-employees for injuries.

BP drilling engineeraAttorney Philip Hilder (L) covers the microphone to consult with his client BP drilling engineer Brett Cocales (R) during the Deepwater Horizon hearings being conducted by the U.S. Coast Guard and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEM) in Houston August 27, 2010. REUTERS/Pat Sullivan/Pool (UNITED STATES)

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So far, the evidence at the hearings reveals that, as early as 9:00pm the night of April 20^th, there was noted “flow” of mud and hydrocarbons from the Macondo well. This data was sent electronically and real-time to the Houston BP office. Unfortunately, since no one is hired by BP to monitor this data, no one was in the “Data” room to notice it. Additionally, BP has no computer program that monitors the data to automatically alert someone when there is aberration from the normal data one would expect to receive. The Board was most interested in this testimony elicited from Houston maritime lawyer Steve Gordon and we can expect to see, as one of its many recommendations to avoid this type of disaster in the future, regulations that will require this data to be monitored and to have a 24/7 emergency method of contact to the drilling platform to verify they are detecting the same data and acting upon it appropriately.

As the Board faces many different issues that are potential areas that can be altered to protect workers and the environment, none is as simple as this “real time data monitoring” to put in place. Obviously, this type of alert is when the situation has gotten bad enough to have actual “flow” but, nevertheless, it would make sure that the workers on the well are alerted to the situation. Had this occurred on April 20^th at 9:05pm, this event would probably not have happened, or certainly would not have resulted in the deaths of eleven good men.

This admission of fault is significant because Transocean has continued to maintain that when the BOP and riser are down on the seabed floor that the Offshore Installation Manager, OIM, is in charge and in command of the vessel not the captain. Transocean’s OIM’s are not licensed mariners and certainly do not hold an unlimited tonnage mariner’s license. This organizational structure is the way that Transocean operates all its dynamically positioned vessels and drill ships in the Gulf of Mexico. The only problem is that a classification of a vessel in the Marshal Islands means that the Captain must be in charge and in command when it is on location not an OIM [unless the captain and the OIM are the same person].

It was, in fact, this lack of a captain in control at the time of this emergency that was a contributing cause to the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

On Monday, August 23, 2010, the fourth round of hearings into by the joint panel of the U.S. Coast Guard and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management was held and the co-chair of the Deepwater Horizon Joint Investigation, U.S. Coast Guard Captain Hung Nguyen.

Nguyen gave his criticism about the management structure commonly used throughout the oil industry where there is a separation of decision making on navigation and drilling aboard floating drilling rigs.

The WSJ article pointed out that in the hearing it was Nguyen who said that the master of the vessel, tasked with keeping a ship afloat, “should be the decision maker” and bear the ultimate responsibility.

But Nguyen said that drilling decisions, which can result in dangerous blowouts, are  generally handled by offshore installation managers.

He went on to say that the fact that ship captains don’t have oversight over drilling “is one of the problems we have here.”

Gordon, Elias & Seely, LLP  have expressed the exact same opinion in a previous article entitled “Mobile Oil Drilling Units [MODU], Mobile Offshore Drilling Unit – Dynamically Positioned [MODU – DPV] Should Always be Under the Command of its Captain”

It is our opinion that the captain needs to be the master of his vessel in all decisions. It is our view that this is a change that needs to be made in this industry for the sake of the safety of the oil rigs, the lives of their crews and the environment. There is simply too much at stake to be dilly dallying around with committee meetings in a time of an emergency. The buck has to stop with the captain and everybody must snap to it and do as he or she commands because people’s lives depend on it. And they need to emergency drills so everybody knows what they’re supposed to do when a real emergency happens.

There was chaos at the time of the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon. Daun Winslow was an executive with Transocean Ltd., the oil rig owner and was visiting the Deepwater Horizon at the time it exploded. Although he said in testimony that “at the first explosion on the rig it became quite clear the master (of the vessel) was in charge,” he was, nevertheless, as a visitor on the scene, consulted in key decisions.

Decisions as to whether to pour water on the flaming rig or to try to disconnect the rig from the deepwater well are major decisions and a captain who is firmly in charge should not be waffling about in this dire time. What is required and demanded of the captain of his vessel is leadership.

This is not to blame the captain because how can he maintain authority if it is being stripped away by meddling corporate types. When people’s lives, property and the delicate environment are at stake, it requires a firm, positive control with no doubts as to whose in charge.

The WSJ article made some very critical points in this investigation that should be taken seriously. In the article it was pointed out that Doug Brown, the rig’s chief mechanic, is represented by veteran maritime lawyer, Steve Gordon.

Gordon has long argued that maritime issues–such as engine maintenance and chain-of-command–deserve more attention from investigators.

In the WSJ article Gordon points out that although a clearer command structure might not have prevented the blowout, it could at least have helped save some of the 11 workers who died.

The drilling rig’s last line of defense in the case of a blowout is to disconnect the rig from the well in an emergency. In the WSJ article, Gordon pointed out that Curt Kuchta, the drilling rig’s captain, testified in an earlier hearing that he hadn’t been trained to disconnect the rig from the well in an emergency.

Steve Gordon could not have made the point more clearly. The WSJ article reports that in the hearing he said:

“When a captain of a vessel testifies that he does not have the authority or the knowledge to activate the final safety function of a vessel, there’s a problem.”

There’s a problem, alright.

Capt. Hung Nguyen speaks during the Deepwater Horizon joint investigation hearings. Photo credit: Brett Duke / The Times-Picayune

The hearings are being carried out in an effort to get to the bottom of the worst oil spill in U.S. history and the events that occurred prior to the disaster on the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig owned by Transocean and leased to British Petroleum at the time.

The hearings are being conducted to get to the root causes of the disaster.

In Monday’s hearing in Houston, the panel intends to question key witnesses from BP, Transocean and Halliburton to narrow down what happened in the incident.

In an article by Brett Clanton at the Houston Chronicle website regarding the previous hearings, testimony revealed that “there were warning signs about dangerous conditions in the Macondo well before the April 20 blowout.”

The article goes on to point out that there are still “unanswered questions about the exact sequence of events that led to the blowout.” Questions such as:

1. “Why a giant stack of sea floor valves, called a blowout preventer, failed to seal off the well once it started gushing oil” and
2. “How BP’s design and oversight of the well may have contributed to the disaster.”

There ia also an article in the Washington Post website about the hearings in Houston. In the article, the author, David S. Hilzenrath, goes on to say that the Federal Investigators want to “call witnesses who can address alleged shortcuts in the drilling of the BP oil well, problems with the failed blowout preventer and the confused scene after an explosion on the rig.”

Clearly, there are critical unanswered questions that are key in understanding what happened before the incident in order to prevent a similar incident from recurring in the future.

Still, it is a challenge for investigators to get witnesses to testify at all. In the previous hearings last month, some witnesses canceled at the last minute and one witness invoked his right to remain silent according to the Fifth Amendment.

Attempting to put out the fire on the ill-fated oil rig before sinking into the Gulf of Mexico.

On August 18, 2010, Moody’s Investors Service downgraded Transocean’s credit rating because Transocean faces laibility for the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. This information was published in an article in Bloomberg Businessweek. We believe that this is due in no small part to the recent facts coming to light about an incident that occurred in the North Sea in December 2009 where a Transocean drilling rig experienced an oil well blowout under eerily similar circumstances.

The main point that was addressed in the North Sea incident was lack of well control at the time of well completion when the drilling mud was being displaced with sea water. This situation was exactly the same on the Deepwater Horizon. Early in the day on April 20th a controversial decision was made by BP and agreed upon by Transocean to displace the drilling mud with salt water. This decision directly lead to the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

So what went wrong with management? The North Sea incident occurred about 4 months prior to the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Transocean’s internal report on the incident was dated April 14, 2010 – 6 days prior to the disaster on April 20, 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico at the Macondo well. Read: Transocean Withheld Internal Report That Proved Fatal For Deepwater Horizon 11

Had the report and subsequent recommendations from the North Sea incident been disseminated to the drilling management for the Gulf of Mexico operations, then it is likely that the Deepwater Horizon disaster would have been completely avoided.

Moody’s stands by its negative outlook for Transocean and feels that it’s liability for the Gulf Oil Spill could be in excess of $6 billion. We believe Moody’s did not make this decision lightly and takes seriously the role Transocean played in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

On the same day that Moody’s downgraded Transocean’s credit rating (August 18th), Transocean sent a letter to BP’s lawyers admonishing them for not being forthcoming with documentation on BP’s investigation into the incident.

Following this letter, BP answered back stating that it has provided 220,000 pages of documents to them and that Transocean’s claims that BP was withholding evidence amounted to nothing more than a “publicity stunt” to draw attention away from Transocean’s role in the disaster. BP’s retort also appears in an article at Bloomberg Businessweek.

The Timeline

• Aug 16th – Confidential internal documents from Transocean reveal that in December, 2009, it experienced a blowout of the Sedco 711 well in the North Sea under very similar circumstances as the Deepwater Horizon incident on April 20, 2010.
• Aug 18th – Transocean’s credit rating is downgraded by Moody’s Investors Service because it beieves Transocean’s liability for the Gulf Oil Spill could reach in excess of $6 billion.
• Aug 18th – Transocean sends a scathing letter to BP’s lawyers demanding that it be forthcoming with documents on its investigation into the Deepwater Horizon disaster and subsequent oil spill.
• Aug 19th – Bloomberg Businessweek reports that BP fires back at Transocean claiming the letter contained “many false and misleading assertions” and that it was “nothing more than a publicity stunt evidently designed to draw attention away from Transocean’s potential role in the Deepwater Horizon tragedy”

It appears, according to Moody’s, that Transocean faces a much larger liability in the Gulf Oil Spill than previously estimated by industry analysts.

While the fund protocol says that all workers injured or killed as a result of the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon or the spill are eligible to file claims, a letter sent by BP’s lawyers to Houston maritime lawyer, Steve Gordon,  representing several of the victims of the Deepwater Horizon, states otherwise.

An excerpt from the BP letter states:

“To be clear, it is BP’s position, consistent with this indemnification, that any settlement between Transocean and any of its injured or deceased employees must include a full release of all BP entities from any and all claims or liability in connection with the Deepwater Horizon incident,” said the letter, from John T. Hickey, a lawyer for BP. “This full release of all BP entities would indeed bar any subsequent claims against the fund being established by BP and the claims facility that will be administered by Mr. Feinberg.”

The letter was handed over to the House Judiciary Committee, which is investigating liability issues and the claims process.

The maritime law firm of Gordon, Elias & Seely, L.L.P., located in Houston, Texas, represents the family of Karl D. Kleppinger, Jr. one of the eleven workers killed on the Deepwater Horizon and 8 other injured crew members who survived (all considered Jones Act seamen under maritime law).

In an excerpt from an email dated August 2, 2010 to Ken Feinberg, administrator of the BP $20B fund, Gordon asks that his clients be allowed to recover monies from the $20B compensation Fund established by BP.

We are writing you to determine if theses claimants will be considered by you to recover monies under the BP Fund that you are administering. We sought determination from BP and they said our clients would not be considered. I attach the letter from Mr. John Hickey for your review.

BP’s position is, as you can see, that since Transocean’s insurer is obligated to indemnify BP for claims from Transocean’s employees, then BP should not further compensate them as that would be a, in their opinion, “double recovery”. Personally, I believe the evidence thus far amassed at the United States Coast Guard hearings shows that the actions, or inactions, of Transocean and BP certainly contributed to this tragedy and BP should pay these families and injured men and women directly.

Since Mr. Hickey is not the final decision maker on this issue and, from all I can read and digest, Mr. Feinberg is, I thought it prudent to ask you if theses claimants, and others similarly situated, will be able to receive funds under the BP Fund.

Please let me know if you will consider the claims of the Kleppinger Family and our 8 survivors. Obviously, though our request is not made on behalf of the other ten families and other injured we do not represent, they are probably interested in your decision as well. Thank you very much.

It is egregious that BP refuses to compensate human life by leaving out the dead and injured from this fund.

On August 20 the New York Times has brought to light this obvious inequity.

Oil plume spewing from uncapped well head in the Gulf of Mexico.

The scientists believe that nearly 3/4ths of the oil is still there, while the NIC report states that there is only about 25% remaining. The UGA group attributes this difference to the way in which the data has been interpreted.

The following video, although not directly connected to the UGA study, is presented by a marine scientist who expresses his concerns for the underwater oil plume remaining in the Gulf.

WATCH VIDEO

The UGA scientists worked on the assumption that the total amount of oil that leaked from the well between the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon on April 20, 2010 to the capping of the well on July 15 2010 was about 4.9 million barrels. There was also about 800,000 barrels captured directly from the wellhead leaving about 4.1 million barrels that actually entered the water. There was a consensus on this.

The scientists pointed out that the only oil that was actually removed was done at the surface through skimming and burning – about 392,000 barrels of oil (the estimated amount from the NIC report), or only about 10%. They assert that the remaining 90% of the oil that entered the Gulf of Mexico has not been recovered.

The NIC report states that the remaining oil that was released into the water, but not removed by skimming or burning, is currently in one of four states:

1. Dispersed as micro-droplets,
2. Dispersed as micro-droplets with dispersant coating,
3. Dissolved (some of which has evaporated) and
4. Residual.

The UGA scientists point out that this oil is not “gone”, but still there and makes up the remaining 90%. They point out that just because the oil is “dispersed” or “dissolved” doesn’t mean that it is “gone” and that the news media’s tendency to interpret it as “gone” is wrong.

The UGA scientists point out that dispersed and dissolved forms of oil can be highly toxic. Furthermore, sorting the oil into the four above states falls far short of assessing how much of it remains a potential threat to the system.

In an article in the Huffington Post the UGA scientists arrived at a different conclusion:

Using a range of reasonable evaporation and degradation estimates, the group calculated that 70-79 percent of oil spilled into the Gulf still remains. The group showed that it was impossible for all the dissolved oil to have evaporated because only oil at the surface of the ocean can evaporate into the atmosphere and large plumes of oil are trapped in deep water.

A full report of the UGA study is available in PDF format here.

The incident occurred at the Sedco 711 location in the North Sea. At that well, Transocean made a decision to displace the mud with seawater and had a blowout. This was the same thing that happened on the Deepwater Horizon prior to the explosion that destroyed it along with 11 lives

A full investigation into the incident was conducted by Transocean following the mishap along with a report detailing all the necessary recommendations to prevent such incidents from recurring. Unfortunately, the Deepwater Horizon never received the report.

But that is not the only similarity with the Deepwater Horizon disaster. These drilling rigs are equipped with a general alarm designed to go off and signal an evacuation if two or more sensors are triggered within a zone. On the Deepwater Horizon, the general alarm had been intentionally “inhibited”,  in essence, it was disabled for well over 8 months prior to the April 20th event. In the North Sea incident, alarms were also being continually activated until they were disabled as well.

The main point that was addressed in the North Sea incident was lack of well control at the time of well completion when the drilling mud was being displaced with sea water. This situation was exactly the same on the Deepwater Horizon. Early in the day on April 20th a controversial decision was made by BP and agreed upon by Transocean to displace the drilling mud with salt water. This decision directly lead to the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

So what went wrong with management? The North Sea incident occurred about 4 months prior to the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Transocean’s internal report on the incident was dated April 14, 2010 – 6 days prior to the disaster on April 20, 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico at the Macondo well.

Had the report and subsequent recommendations from the North Sea incident been disseminated to the drilling management for the Gulf of Mexico operations, then it is likely that the Deepwater Horizon disaster would have been completely avoided.

Transocean is the world’s largest offshore drilling company with three main divisions – North Sea, Asia and North America. It is management’s responsibility to coordinate the various activities under one’s charge. There is no excuse for poor coordination at management level especially when it comes to safety.

Transocean discovered vital information from the North Sea incident that would have prevented a disaster and saved lives. How could the largest oil drilling company in the world be so lax on such critical safety issues as to repeat the same mistakes just four months later? It was their duty to demand that this information be known and proper procedures followed throughout all their locations.

Further, they were lucky in the North Sea incident that the Blowout Preventer worked and prevented a similar disaster. Relying on the Blowout Preventer to do its job should be a last resort measure only as an emergency.  The engineering requirements, in the oil field industry, require that there at least be  two “barriers”, e.g.,  mud and cement, mud and annular, etc. Transocean operates as if the BOP is a barrier when, in fact, it is an emergency device.

Transocean was very aware of loss to its reputation after the North Sea incident. The report stated that the incident resulted in 11.1 days of lost time at a cost of approx £5.2M (approx $8.1M) and “significant loss of reputation to Transocean”.

The April 14th report was limited to the North Sea Division, as opposed to distributing the information to all three major Divisions. These are fundamental problems that should have applied to all drilling locations. The fact that their report predates the Deepwater Horizon disaster, coupled with the fact that it was intentionally limited in its distribution, reveals a corporate lack of continuity in its safety policies and programs.

Had they decided to correct the problems company-wide rather than trying to treat the one incident in the North Sea as an isolated incident, then it is likely that the Deepwater Horizon disaster would have never occurred.

Although the North Sea Division is a separate division, it is the responsibility of upper management to coordinate all areas under their charge. This failure to do so, resulted in death, injury, and destruction of four state’s eco-systems.