Body found after oil, gas platform blast

KENNER (AP) — Authorities have found the body of a man who was killed during an explosion on an oil and gas platform in Louisiana’s Lake Pontchartrain.

Jefferson Parish Sheriff Joe Lopinto said a helicopter spotted the body of 44-year-old Timothy Morrison on Friday afternoon. He said the body was on the lake’s shoreline, about 3 miles (5 kilometers) from the platform.

Morrison, of Katy, Texas, was a contract worker on the platform when the explosion happened Sunday in Jefferson Parish waters north of the suburb of Kenner.

Lopinto says investigators are still determining the cause of the blast. The explosion, which rattled homes in Kenner, injured seven platform workers, three critically.More oil than initially believed spilled off Louisiana coast

Oil spill bigger
than estimated
The Coast Guard says the amount of oil discharged into the Gulf of Mexico off Louisiana’s coast last weekend is substantially higher than initial estimates.

The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement says oil spewed out of an underwater fractured pipe Saturday in the Gulf of Mexico about 40 miles (65 kilometers) southeast of Venice, Louisiana.

The Coast Guard said in a news release Thursday that offshore oil and gas operator LLOG Exploration Offshore reports about 16,000 barrels of oil were discharged. The operator initially estimated that 7,950 to 9,350 barrels had spilled.

The Coast Guard says multiple flights over the area have detected no recoverable oil.

The Deepwater Horizon spill leaked more than 3 million barrels into the Gulf in 2010.