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BEIJING (AFP) – Two oil workers were missing but more than 30 others were rescued from a listing Sinopec rig off China’s northeast coast, the government said Wednesday, as the company insisted no oil was spilled.

Rescue teams saved 34 people who were working on the platform in the Shengli oil field off Dongying in Shandong province when the incident took place late Tuesday, the transport ministry told AFP.

Helicopters and rescue boats were searching for the two people who slipped from the platform, now leaning at a 45-degree angle in shallow waters, the Xinhua news agency said.

The Shengli oil field, the second-largest in China, is operated by Sinopec, the biggest oil refiner in Asia.

“No oil was spilled,” a Sinopec spokesman, who asked not to be identified, told AFP, confirming the rig’s valve had been immediately shut off and the 34 workers had been rescued.

“The cause of the accident is still under investigation,” the spokesman said, adding it was probably due to powerful waves generated by Typhoon Malou, which made landfall in central Japan on Wednesday.

The platform accident comes less than two months after a July 16 oil spill sparked by the explosion of two pipelines operated by the country’s largest oil company, China National Petroleum Corp, in the northeastern port of Dalian.

Official estimates said that 1,500 tonnes of crude poured into the Yellow Sea, but environmental watchdog Greenpeace said that the figure could be 60 times higher, making the spill one of the 30 worst in history.

The BP oil spill — triggered by an April 20 explosion on a rig off the coast of the southern US state of Louisiana — has resulted in an estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico.

The International Energy Agency recently announced that China had surpassed the United States last year to become the world’s top energy consumer, but Beijing still relies on coal for 70 percent of its fast-growing energy needs.

Following the oil rig explosion explosion in the Gulf of Mexico last week, I was asked to appear on The Alyona Show on Russia Television to discuss whether we’ve really “learned anything” since the devastating BP oil spill in the Gulf last spring. [To view the interview, visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXfE5atXBMU.] But that question is loaded because we all know that the real issue is not whether we have learned anything, but rather how we will approach similar situations in the future. The recent explosion was a great way to dive back into the problems with offshore oil exploration and production.

So far, it appears that all of the parties responsible for the explosion–from the owner of the rig to the U.S. Coast Guard to the local authorities–acted immediately to find out exactly what had gone wrong. Secondly, the White House quickly got in front of the story. From a public relations standpoint, everyone looked their best. And yet what have we really learned? To answer this question, we need to look back–not at the BP oil spill last spring, but at the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster as a prime example of how “learning from” and “fixing” an oil disaster don’t always match up.

The Exxon Valdez tanker oil spill, in which an estimated 25 to 32 million gallons of oil was dumped into Prince William Sound as the tanker left Valdez, Alaska for Long Beach, California, is well documented, and its effects on the environment are still being felt today. Ostensibly, that disaster might not have taken place had the tanker’s captain not passed out in his bunk after a bender, leaving the third mate at the helm. However, there were a multitude of other problems which led to this disaster, including a faulty sonar system and the fact that the Exxon Valdez was a single hulled tanker.

As a result of that disaster, Congress passed the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA), which addressed many of the problems that led to the Exxon Valdez spill. The OPA noted that an estimated 60 percent of the oil would not have been spilled if the vessel had been double hulled. In other words, more than half the oil would have remained on the ship if construction standards had been different. Subsequently, the OPA mandated a phase-in for all oil tankers to be double hulled–unfortunately, however, the phase-in isn’t due to be completed until 2015, which is 26 years after the disaster.

So, what have we learned in the five months since the BP oil in the Gulf of Mexico and in the 21 years since Exxon Valdez? If history is any indication, it will most likely be at least a quarter of a century before any real progress will be made on completely repairing the problems that led to this latest oil disaster in the Gulf.

Jonathan A. Schein is CEO/ScheinMedia, publisher of MetroGreenBusiness.com.

Follow Jonathan A. Schein on Twitter:

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Around 9:30 local time on September 2, an oil rig explosion explosion was reported in the Gulf of Mexico, about 90 miles south of Vermilion Bay. Despite the fire and explosion on the Mariner Energy rig, all 13 crew members escaped into the water and were rescued. The workers have been applauded for having the presence of mind to remember their training, as they were found wearing their survival suits and holding hands to stay together. The Crystal Clear, a support vessel for oil rig explosions that was in the area, found the crew members after they had been in the water for about 2 hours. These workers were given soda and water, then taken to a hospital where it was determined that only one of them had sustained injuries.

Behind the Blaze

The explosion resulted from a fire that started on the upper deck of the rig’s platform, where the living quarters are located, but the cause of the fire has not yet been determined. Members of the Coast Guard reported that the fire burned for hours, but has since been extinguished. Fortunately, the rig was undergoing maintenance at the time of the explosion, so no oil or gas was being produced. This is one likely reason for the lack of oil leaks associated with this incident, but surveillance will be continued to make sure that leaks do not emerge unnoticed.

Government Investigation

The U.S. government has announced that it will be conducting a full investigation of the Mariner Energy oil rig explosion incident. Michael Bromwich, the director of the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), stated that the investigation would attempt to find out what caused the fire and explosion, how it happened, and whether or not any laws or regulations were violated. If there have been violations, Bromwich said, the investigation would determine what kind of “enforcement action” should be taken.

Oil Industry Regulation

With the Mariner Energy explosion just a few months behind the BP disaster, environmental activists have been questioning oil industry regulation and wondering why nothing was done in the wake of the BP explosion. Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune called the BP disaster a “wake up call,” lamenting the fact that the world had “hit the snooze button” instead of paying attention and making much-needed changes to oil industry regulation. ��Today,” he stated on the day of the explosion, “the alarm went off again.�� However, it’s looking unlikely that any steps will be taken, as International Association of Drilling Contractors president Lee Hunt states that the Mariner Energy explosion was “an industrial-style accident that could have happened onshore.�€ Arguments are sure to continue from both sides, so oil industry regulation will remain a difficult subject for the U.S.

About the Author: Heather Green is a Christian mom, freelance writer, pet lover and the resident blogger for OnlineNursingDegrees.org, a free informational website offering tips and advice on online nursing colleges.

[image via Jalopnik]

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