墨西哥灣鑽井架爆炸事故 11人失蹤

【英文原文】

Blast Jolts Oil World
The Coast Guard said Wednesday that it was still searching for 11 people missing after an explosion and fire at a oil-drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico that left three critically injured.

The rig, about 41 miles off the Louisiana coast, is owned and operated by Transocean Ltd. and contracted to British oil major BP PLC. A spokesman for Transocean said most of the 126 people on board were safe. The Coast Guard said Wednesday afternoon that 11 were still missing. The rig was still burning and listing.

It was unclear what caused the blast, which happened at around 10 p.m. Transocean Vice President Adrian Rose said crews were performing routine work before the explosion and there were no signs of trouble, the Associated Press reported. Tuesday. Initial indications show that terrorism wasn't involved, the Coast Guard said.

A spokesman for BP said the company had six personnel on board the rig at the time of the incident, and all were safe. The rig, the Deepwater Horizon, is located in an area known as the Mississippi Canyon.

Deepwater Horizon is a semisubmersible, effectively a floating platform that has small thrusters to hold it in place above a well. It was carrying out exploration drilling on BP's Macondo prospect in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico. BP said Transocean was carrying out the work on BP's behalf and was responsible for safety on the rig. Its staff on the facility work with Transocean's drilling team to make sure the work is done to BP's specifications.

BP, which owns the rights to produce oil and gas from the area, filed for a permit April 16 to temporarily abandon the well it was drilling at the site of the explosion, according to the Minerals Management Service, an arm of the Interior Department that oversees offshore drilling. It wasn't clear from the service's data if the government had approved the permit.

A BP spokesman says it had recently wrapped up exploration drilling. It is standard practice, the spokesman said, to file such a permit. The rig would then be moved to another location while BP spends time analyzing and interpreting data.

【中文譯文】

美國海岸警衛隊(Coast Guard)週三表示，仍在搜救墨西哥灣一處石油井架發生爆炸和火災之後失蹤的11人。這起事故已造成三人重傷。

消防隊正在奮力撲滅井架大火油井位於路易斯安那海岸線41英里遠的地方，爲Transocean公司所有和運營，正受託於石油巨頭英國石油公司(BP PLC，下稱英國石油)進行鑽探作業。Transocean公司說，井架上的126人中多數安全。海岸警衛隊週三下午稱，仍有11人失蹤。井架仍在燃燒和傾斜。

爆炸發生於週二晚上10點左右，原因未明。據美聯社(Associated Press)報道，Transocean副總裁羅斯(Adrian Rose)表示，爆炸發生時井架上人員在進行常規作業，沒有任何故障跡象。海岸警衛隊表示，初步證據表明，這起事故不涉及恐怖主義。

英國石油的一位發言人表示，事故發生時，該公司在井架上有六名人員，他們全部安全。井架名爲“深水地平線”(Deepwater Horizon)，位於一個被稱爲“密西西比大峽谷”(Mississippi Canyon)的區域。

井架爲半潛式，實際上就是一個浮在水面上的平臺，下面有小型推進器讓它固定在油井上方。當時它正在英國石油位於墨西哥灣深水區的潛在油田“Macondo”上執行勘探鑽井。英國石油表示，Transocean當時是代表英國石油作業，並對井架上的安全負責。它在井架上的工作人員同Transocean公司的鑽探團隊一起合作，確保按照英國石油的規範進行作業。

英國石油擁有從該區域開採石油和天然氣的權利。美國礦產資源管理局(Minerals Management Service)稱，該公司已於4月16日申請暫時廢棄爆炸現場正在鑽探的油井。礦產資源管理局隸屬內政部(Interior Department)，負責監管海上鑽探。從該部門的資料還看不出政府有沒有批准英國石油的申請。

英國石油的一位發言人表示，該公司已於近期完成勘探鑽井。這位發言人說，提出上訴申請屬於一種慣例。得到批准後，井架將被搬遷到其他地方，而英國石油將花時間對數據進行分析和解讀。