Very important front page article in the NY Times by Jad Mouawad and Barry Meir on the enormous, deep-drilling and pumping platforms far out at sea — unknown to most of us.

Perdido, for example, is more than a 20-hour supply boat journey from shore — far enough out that a major fire could burn out of control before assistance arrived. Hurricanes regularly batter the region with giant waves and winds exceeding 100 miles an hour. Underwater, both powerful currents and mudslides play havoc with delicate equipment and the pipelines that bring oil and gas back to shore.

The water temperature, which hovers at just above freezing at depths below 3,000 feet, can harden natural gas into crystallike structures called hydrates that can clog pipelines and other equipment. And because the wells are deeper than human divers can go, oil companies must rely on remote-controlled submarines to maintain their equipment or perform repairs.

Oil industry officials, while acknowledging the risks, say safety concerns are overblown.

Now there’s a word that should be retired for a decade at least: overblown.  As it turns out, fears about a major catastrophe in the Gulf were, if anything, underblown…

…BP’s Thunder Horse platform, the company’s flagship project in the gulf, ran into one unexpected engineering problem after another before it even began production in 2008. Examples included a backward valve that nearly flooded the facility and faulty welding on subsea equipment that left pipes with dangerous cracks. Repairs delayed the project by three years.

Hurricanes are a constant menace. Hundreds of offshore platforms and pipelines were destroyed by hurricanes Rita and Katrina in 2005, shutting down the gulf’s entire oil and gas production for weeks. A Shell platform called Mars was badly damaged when its drilling rig tumbled over in Hurricane Katrina, shattering equipment, living quarters and the steel pipes that girdle all facilities. The two pipelines that take Mars’s oil and natural gas to shore were also badly damaged.