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Brazil rushes to save rig
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THE world's biggest offshore oilrig, hit by a series of blasts that apparently killed 10 people last Thursday, may sink in 48 hours as the chances of recovery fade, the rig's Brazilian owners said on Friday.
Brazil's state oil giant Petrobras stepped up efforts to save the world's biggest offshore oil rig on Saturday and prevent environmental damage after a series of blasts sent it tilting into the ocean and killed 10 workers.
Petrobras said on Saturday that it had given up hope that nine missing workers from the fire brigade had survived, and counted them among the dead.
Petrobras, the biggest company in Brazil, is still trying to determine the cause of the explosions. ``We do not yet know if it was gas or some type of oil,'' said Reichstul.
It was not immediately clear what caused the blasts at the platform, located in the Roncador oil field 78 miles offshore in the Campos Basin, which produces more than three quarters of Brazil's crude oil.
Some 175 people were on the rig at the time of the first explosion, but survivors were transferred to a neighboring platform. A firefighting team of 25 people was left aboard.
The P-36 rig can produce up to 180,000 barrels of crude oil per day but after starting operations last year, it was only pumping out 80,000 bpd, or five percent of Brazil's output. All production was halted. Petrobras said it was poised to lose US$50 million a month with the rig out of operation.
Petrobras stock hit
Blue-chip Petrobras stock tumbled 6.7 percent to 50.40 reais on Thursday.
``The company will have to substitute production with imported oil,'' said Catarina Pedrosa, an oil industry analyst at Bilbao Vizcaya brokerage.
Three explosions
The first explosion at the semi-submersible platform occurred shortly after midnight. Another, stronger blast hit 20 minutes later when firefighters had already started emergency works. It was followed by a third blast.
Judging from preliminary information, officials said, the blast occurred in one of the support columns.
Petrobras embarrassed
The explosion was just the latest embarrassing incident at accident-prone Petrobras.
The United Oil Workers Federation (FUP) lashed out at Petrobras, accusing the company of putting its workers at risk through cost and personnel cuts. Some 81 workers have died in accidents over the last three years, union leaders said.
``It is a situation that shows an irresponsible average of two deaths a month,'' FUP leaders said in a statement, urging the country's 34,000 oil workers to join nationwide protests on Friday to demand better working conditions and safety.
Petrobras has also suffered from a series of highly publicized oil spills in the last couple of years, including an environmental disaster in Rio de Janeiro's picturesque bay.
Campos Basin accounts for around 80 percent of Brazil's oil output. Petrobras lost its oil exploration monopoly in 1997, but remains the only company producing oil in Brazil.
Spill danger
A Petrobras exploration and production director, Carlos Tadeu Fraga, told Reuters there was no danger that oil would spring from deep sea wells.
``The well heads are completely closed and there is no chance they will be damaged or open if the platform sinks because they are not under the platform,'' Fraga said. ``Our submarines checked them two times and they are securely closed. An oil spill from the bottom is ruled out.'' The well heads are nearly 1.3 km below the surface.
The federal environmental agency, IBAMA, confirmed that no major disaster was on the cards.
But Mendes said the sight of the rig tilted into the southern Atlantic ocean was a shock.
A great loss
Around five percent of Brazil's oil output and 3.6 percent of its natural gas comes from the rig, which began operating last year off the coast of Rio de Janeiro state.
Damage to the rig, which is insured for US$500 million, has totaled about US$360 million, an insurance spokesman said last Friday.
The maximum spill, according to Petrobras, would be 395,000 gallons of crude and diesel in pipelines and onboard tanks.
Experts Arrive
Petrobras has sent 19 boats to the area, nine of them to place floating absorption barriers around the rig. Five more boats joined the effort last Sunday.
IBAMA said calm seas and predominant northeasterly winds were likely to take any unrecovered oil out to sea rather than to the coast. If it did float toward land, it would take eight days to reach the beaches.
A team of 30 people, including engineers, divers and two consultants from the United States, is trying to right the platform by injecting compressed air and nitrogen into the submerged column and sucking out the ocean water.
Eleven Dutch water specialists and 50 tonnes of suction and hose equipment from Europe were in transit to Macae.
(SD-Agencies)
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