These pictures came in from a couple of different sources, JB and ES. Thanks guys. The text accompanying them seems to have been added cumulatively and is not creditable to any one person.

It appears the well came in when nippling down the BOP after cementing. Apparently control of the well was lost when it began to flow up the casing annulus following cementing and while nippling down to set the slips. The jack up sank and the platform is expected to be a total loss.

August 12th, 2004.  Egyptian firefighters worked for a second straight day to douse a fire on an offshore natural gas platform part-owned by ENI SpA and BP PLC. An Agence France-Presse correspondent saw six teams of firefighters backed by helicopters leaving Port Said early morning for the Temseh platform, where the blaze was set off yesterday, apparently by accident. An oil industry source said it would take five days to extinguish the fire. All 150 workers on the platform, run by Petrobel and owned by ENI, BP and Egypt's General Petroleum Corp, were evacuated.

Temseh is one of Egypt's largest gas deposits, producing between 150-180 million cubic feet per day. The platform had been shut for maintenance at the start of the month. The fire initially broke out on jackup working alongside the platform, the GSF Adriatic IV, which has sunk. Officials said it was caused by an overflow of natural gas during drilling. The initial blaze was brought under control yesterday afternoon, but for reasons that are still unclear it later spread to the platform, which erupted into flame. "Equipment damage was considerable," an oil ministry official said today, without giving a precise estimate.

GlobalSantaFe reports that one of the company's drilling rigs, the GSF Adriatic IV, was severely damaged during a fire and sank in the Mediterranean Sea approximately 25 miles offshore Egypt. The fire occurred at 8:45 a.m. local time on Tuesday, August 10, 2004, following a well control incident.

There were no injuries and all 79 persons onboard the drilling rig were safely evacuated by boat to the nearest shorebase. The personnel on the rig included 44 GlobalSantaFe employees and 35 contract workers.

"We are thankful we were able to safely evacuate all personnel from the rig without injury," said Jon Marshall, GlobalSantaFe's President and Chief Executive Officer.

At the time of the incident, the rig was located over a production platform owned by Petrobel, a joint venture between Eni and the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation. The rig had been at the location for 58 days.