Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez posted a message on Twitter this morning that a natural gas explosion in the Caribbean sank a semi-submersible drilling rig. The rig, called the Aban Pearl, was owned by India’s Aban Offshore Ltd. and all 95 crew on board were safely evacuated according to Chavez. No cause was given for the explosion and Venezuelan officials say that the rig explosion poses no environmental risk. But the blast comes a little more than three weeks after a rig owned by Transocean Ltd. (RIG) and operated for BP plc (BP) exploded in the Gulf of Mexico leaving 11 workers missing and presumed dead, and leaking an estimated 5,000 b/d of crude oil into the Gulf.
The Aban Pearl was working in the Mariscal Sucre complex off the northeastern coast of Venezuela just west of Trinidad and Tobago. The rig was capable of drilling in water up to 1,250 feet deep, but there is no information concerning the depth of the water at the explosion site.
Venezuelan national oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PdVSA) had sought investors to help fund the estimated $8.53 billion project cost, but there were no takers. Several Japanese companies as well as Norway’s Statoil ASA (STO), Italy’s Eni SpA (E), and Russia’s Gazprom were invited to bid but all declined.
Mariscal Sucre is estimated to hold 14.7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and production was intended to serve Venezuela’s domestic market. There was also the possibility that Venezuela would have build an LNG processing facility to export LNG.
The Aban Pearl was believed to have been drilling a new well in the Dragon field, which was scheduled to enter production in 2012. Once completed, estimated production from the entire Mariscal Sucre complex is 1.2 billion cubic feet/day of natural gas and 20,000 b/d of condensates.
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