Oil, Oil Rig | featured news

Coast Guard crews continued searching for two workers missing after an explosion and fire aboard a Gulf of Mexico oil rig on Friday that was apparently triggered by workers using a blow torch to cut a pipe.

Two people were missing and four people were airlifted to a hospital Friday after an oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico some 17 miles southeast of Grand Isle, La., the U.S. Coast Guard told NBC News.

Arctic oil ambitions ran into new problems Saturday evening when the Discoverer drilling rig, slated to begin exploratory operations in the Chukchi Sea next month, ran adrift in stiff winds in Alaska’s Dutch Harbor and came perilously close to the beach.

The federal agency charged with regulating the oil industry has allowed the industry largely to police itself, records show.

President Obama on Friday sought to reassure Gulf communities that the federal government is committed to helping them deal with the massive oil slick working its way to shore.

Administration wants investigations into a rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico to be completed before any expansion of offshore oil drilling.

BP Plc will clean up an oil spill from one of its wells in the Gulf of Mexico and compensate those affected, its chief executive said, accepting that the disaster could hit plans to open new areas off the U.S. coast to drilling.

Coast Guard discovers oil seeping from the damaged well that fed a massive rig that exploded off Louisiana's coast.