Fire Reported in Gulf of Mexico
This just caught our eye on the SkyTruth Alerts: multiple aircraft flying over the Gulf late last night reported seeing a fire about 60 miles southeast of the tip of the Mississippi Delta, in deep water about 20 miles south-southeast of BP’s failed Macondo well. The source of the fire is unknown, and to our knowledge this has not yet been verified, but the location given in the NRC report puts this in Mississippi Canyon Block 519, where wells have recently been drilled by Noble Energy and tied back to the massive “Na Kika” platform located in Block 474 a few miles to the northwest. A few small spills of hydraulic fluid have been reported in the vicinity in the past week so we know there is current activity in the area.
The Na Kika cluster of offshore fields is among the deepest in the world, with water depths exceeding 6,500′ and wells reaching down more than 12,000′ beneath the seafloor. (Na Kika is the “octopus god” of Polynesian mythology. Seems appropriate.)
BP is the operator of this development, with Shell a major partner.
Here is a map showing the reported location of the fire. Platforms are shown as orange dots; pipelines are orange lines; the Mississippi Delta is at upper left, and the Macondo well site is shown for reference:
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