A hurricane narrowly avoided an ultra deep offshore drilling ship in Gulf of Mexico, USA

Sentinel-1 CSAR IW acquired on 26 October 2020 from 00:09:35 to 00:10:00 UTC
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Sentinel-1 CSAR SM acquired on 28 October 2020 from 11:59:03 to 11:59:53 UTC
Sentinel-3 SLSTR RBT acquired on 28 October 2020 from 16:13:09 to 16:16:09 UTC
Author(s): Sentinel Vision team, VisioTerra, France - svp@visioterra.fr
Keyword(s): Atmosphere, hurricane, cyclone, oil and gas, oil spill, pollution, marine environment, Gulf of Mexico
Fig. 1 - S1 (2020.10.26; 2020.11.07; 2020.11.19) - Many oil rigs are located in the hurricane prone Gulf of Mexico.
2D view
Transocean-owned Deepwater Asgard is a drill ship that was operating in the area enclosed in green by end October 2020.
Fig. 2 - Zoom of the approximate location: numerous oil seeps are visible near the two platforms, attesting the likely presence of an oil reservoir underneath.
2D view
It was then drilling even further & deeper than its sister-rig, the infamous Deepwater Horizon that caused the largest recorded offshore oil spill, on 20 April 2020.
Fig. 3 - S1 (28.10.2020) - It was discovered it was on the path of cat-3 Hurricane Zeta but Transocean chose did not stop the operations to evacuate its workers,
2D view
They chose to send in more workers to try to complete the drill before Zeta arrived. This risky move was a success but had it failed, it could have caused another Deepwater Horizon disaster with wells even harder to cement.
Fig. 4 - S3 SLSTR (28.10.2020) - The eye of Zeta in very close vicinity to the approximate position of Deepwater Asgard.
2D view
The views expressed herein can in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Space Agency or the European Union.
Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2024, processed by VisioTerra.
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