oil rig 380 owned by mariner energy. it exploded a little over an hour ago. about 90 miles south of vermilion bay. 13 people workers, on board that rig, all have been accounted tore. one suffering injuries. we do not know at this point the extent of the injuries. and this is being described now as a production platform. an explosion and fire, 13 people all accounted for. that s the good news, we ll continue to update the story for you right here in the cnn news room. ( revving, siren blares ) there s no way to hide it. sir, have you been drinking tonight?
a very busy day in the cnn news room. two big stories we re following for you right now. the left of your screen, it is the story of the production platform. and i think that s what we re referring to it at this point. but a production platform explosion in the gulf of mexico. about 90 miles south of vermilion bay. again, about, let s get back to the white house briefing. because we believe robert gibbs is talking about the rig, the platform explosion. this is a, i m told this is a production platform about 100 miles off the coast, i m told that the depth of the water is about 340 feet. so this is not a deepwater facility. as i understand it, the well was
gas that might be escaping in advance of the oil moving forward. having said all of that we were producing part of the time yesterday and part of the time we were taking down the systems but in spite of all of that we were still able to produce 12,843 barrels, a combination of what was flared from the q4000, which was about a little over 5000 barrels, and the helix producer, which was able to produce 7680 barrels. we are very pleased. this is the first time a floating production unit has been employed in the gulf of mexico and the helix producer, the rate at which they are producing is capable of 24,000 barrels a day which is higher than the other production platform that is we have had on scene to date. we ll continue to do that. elsewhere in the area, the prevailing winds and weather are basically taking the oil that s coming to the surface to the southeast of the well site. we re getting a little break in the action as far as oil closing shore. that s allowing us to be able to do re
right now, the conventional thinking is it probably will ram straight into portions of mexico or texas. but they are hoping and praying that it will be to the south of the spill. meanwhile, real quickly, let s take a look at what s going on in the 48 connected states. and we do have some widely scattered showers through portions of texas at this hour. moving through the panhandle of florida as well. dry in the northern plains. a little humid up through portions of the northeast today. those showers get out of town. all right. all right. thanks for that weather forecast. now, let s do a couple of quick headlines for you. day 71 now of the disaster in the gulf, b.p. now talking about a long term containment plan to plug this leak should relief well efforts fail. i thought those were the end all. this new strategy, the oil would be collected through several systems, then pumped through a pipeline to an existing production platform. right now, workers are drilling those two relief well
hole they ve drilled and the drilling platform goes away. then a whole new platform, a whole different platform actually comes in, uncorks the hole and gets the oil out of the well. two different types of rigs. two different processes. there s drilling and then there s production. drilling done with a drilling rig, production done with a production rig. the production platform pumps the oil back to shore through all of the green pipe lines you see there on the map. those are the green lines. again, drilling and production platforms, two different things. this is sort of oil industry 101. this drilling versus production distinction is at the very heart of a very ugly and very stupid fight going on right now. as we speak, the obama administration is trying to temporarily ban deepwater offshore oil drilling in the gulf of mexico. today for a second time this week, a louisiana federal judge