Offshore Platforms Need to Be Higher

Offshore oil and natural gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico need to be built as much as 10ft (3m) higher than had been thought, an engineer told the National Hurricane Conference on Thursday.

Research prompted by hurricanes in 2004 and 2005 indicates that new platforms should have decks as high as 50 to 60ft (16 to 18m) above the surface – 5 to 10ft higher than current standards call for, said Frank J. Puskar, president of Houston-based energy Engineering Inc.

"This is a big, big change for our industry," Puskar said at a session about hurricanes and offshore petroleum.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in August and September 2005 destroyed 113 production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. A year earlier, Hurricane Ivan had piled up waves 20ft(6m) higher than was then expected for a “hundred-year“ storm –as much as 92ft (28m) from their underwater origins to the top, Puskar said. He said the highest waves are in deep waters, but about half their height is below the surface.

Puskar said the American Petroleum Institute will be coming out with new offshore engineering standards before June, when the 2007 hurricane season starts. Those standards probably will also take into account new findings that waves are much bigger in some parts of the Gulf of Mexico than others, posing greater risks for offshore platforms, Puskar said.

Hurricane Opal made hurricane researchers aware that the storms can intensify suddenly as they cross a deep warm-water eddy called a loop current.