Ike destroys a number of Gulf platforms

HOUSTON (AP) - Hurricane Ike appears to have destroyed a number of production platforms and damaged some of the pipelines in the Gulf of Mexico, federal officials said Sunday.

Fly-overs revealed that at least 10 production platforms were destroyed by the storm, said Lars Herbst, regional director for the U.S. Minerals Management Service.

“It’s too early to say if it’s close to Katrina- and Rita-type damage,” Herbst said.

There are about 3,800 production platforms in the Gulf, including 717 with full-time staffs aboard.

The MMS says Hurricane Katrina destroyed 44 platforms three years ago, and soon after Hurricane Rita destroyed 64.

Herbst stressed the assessments were preliminary, but the damage appeared far worse than that caused by Hurricane Gustav two weeks ago.

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Ike destroys a number of Gulf platforms

Ladies and Gentlemen, get ready for it, it IS coming, the BIG OIL price gouge is on the way and there’s not a thing we can do about it either.

The Feds are already saying that they are going to police price gouging and it will not be allowed, HERE but I have to wonder, does that policy apply only to individual service stations that are taking advantage of the consumer or will it apply to the bigger picture? The one where BIG OIL sees an opportunity to take us for a ride and get their platforms rebuilt on our dime?

The article says that at least 10 platforms have been destroyed by IKE. Now I’m thinking that the above story basically says we’re suppose to prepare for serious supply problems and disruption as such. I’m NOT a mathematics professor, but even if IKE destroyed as many as 38 platforms, that is only 1% of ALL production platforms. If a 1% disruption gives us that much grief, I would think it may be prudent to station military protection of ALL offshore production platforms. Looks like a huge set of viable, and readily accessible targets to me.

If a 1% destruction is going to cause the massive and immediate rise in prices that we are seeing all over the USA right now, God help us if our enemies ever figure out that oil platforms are a more important target than the WTC Towers and the Pentagon were.

Folks, the oil companies are going to gouge US to pay for the repairs on their equipment, US, as in you and me, the consumer, that is a fact. The federal government is not going to stop them either. The federal government is too far into the pockets OF the big oil companies, and the feds are NOT going to cut off their noses to spite their faces. The only hope we have is to replace ALL of our Senators and Congresscritters with fresh and hopefully not as yet corrupted faces, and to make those fresh faces fully aware, you CAN and WILL be replaced if you don’t set this nation back on the straight and narrow!

You can bet that our current batch of law makers won’t do it, if they had ANY intentions of doing so, it would have already been done.