Venezuela Offshore Rig Sinks

Two in one month?!

New York Times:
By SIMON ROMERO
Published: May 13, 2010

LIMA, Peru — An offshore natural gas exploration rig leased to Venezuela’s national oil company sank off the coast of northeastern Venezuela and forced the rig to evacuate all 95 of its workers, President Hugo Chávez announced early Thursday.

In an attempt to calm nerves after the explosion of an offshore drilling rig last month in the Gulf of Mexico, Venezuelan energy officials said that the sunken natural gas rig posed no environment threat and that no workers had died. The cause of the sinking was unclear.

Mr. Chávez, who made the initial announcement about the sunken rig via his account on Twitter, the social networking site, also said that two Venezuelan Navy patrols were sent to the waters by the rig, which is owned by Aban Singapore, a wholly owned subsidiary of Aban Offshore, India’s largest oil rig company.

“You know this platform is semisubmergible,” Mr. Chávez told his followers on Twitter. “At midnight it listed, took on water, ceased operations and they evacuated,” he said. More>>>