World's biggest oil rig sinks

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- The world's largest offshore oil platform sank in just a few minutes Tuesday, five days after powerful blasts rocked the rig and killed 10 people, Brazil's state oil giant Petrobras said.

The 40-storey-tall rig, 75 miles (120 kilometers) off the Brazilian coast, was ravaged last Thursday by explosions and fire that killed at least two workers. Eight others were still missing and presumed dead.

Petrobras flew in experts and equipment from around the world to try to keep the rig afloat.

The explosion knocked out a supporting pillar, and the platform tilted and sank slowly into the sea off the coast of Macae, 120 miles (195 kilometers) northeast of Rio.

Over the weekend, a team of navy divers, engineers and foreign consultants injected nitrogen into flooded compartments, partly righting it, Petrobras said.

But high winds and rough seas hindered efforts Monday. Petrobras said the platform "shifted suddenly" early Tuesday morning.

There are fears that up to 395,000 gallons (1.5 million liters) of crude and diesel in underwater pipelines and onboard tanks could spill into the ocean. That amount is just a fraction of 11 million gallons (41.6 million liters) spilled by the Exxon Valdez supertanker into the Alaskan seas in 1989.

Chief Executive Henri Philippe Reichstul said the oil and gas wells were sealed before the rig was evacuated, but the danger was that the oil still aboard could spill. In an official statement, the company played down the risk.

Petrobras has said it has enough boats and absorption barriers to prevent a disaster, though environmentalists say it is impossible to know how serious the damage will be.

"The concern is to get the absorption barriers around the oil ... and in these conditions we expect the environmental impact to be minimal," said Carlos Henrique Mendes of the environmental authority Ibama.

Non-governmental environmentalists were also not overly alarmed.

Garo Batmanian, secretary general of World Wildlife Fund for Nature in Brazil said: "It is not a biodiverse area, it is almost off the continental shelf. The current is also not bringing it to the coast."

Brazil had aimed to be self sufficient in auto fuel production by 2005, and the sunken platform was crucial to the project. The company estimates the sinking will cost it $100 million per month.

The company said it did not know whether it would be able to recover bodies submerged in the rig.

Petrobras
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