Engineer: Offshore Platforms Need More Height

Offshore oil and natural gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico need to be built as much as 10 feet higher than had been thought, an engineer told the National Hurricane Conference on Thursday.

Research prompted by hurricanes in 2004 and 2005 indicates that new platforms should have decks as high as 50 to 60 feet above the surface — 5 to 10 feet higher than current standards call for, said Frank J. Puskar, president of Houston-based Energy Engineering Inc.

“This is a big, big change for our industry,” Puskar said at a session about hurricanes and offshore petroleum.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in August and September 2005 destroyed 113 production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. A year earlier, Hurricane Ivan had piled up waves 20 feet higher than was then expected for a “hundred-year” storm — as much as 92 feet from their underwater origins to the top, Puskar said.

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