Another Oil Platform Blast in Gulf: No Injuries, No Leaking

An apparent explosion at an offshore oil operation hit the Gulf of Mexico Thursday as a platform caught fire about 100 miles off the Louisiana coast. But this time there were no fatalities and no sign of oil in the ocean waters. All 13 crew members aboard the platform were rescued after they jumped into the water.

The burning platform, owned by Mariner Energy of Houston, was spotted Thursday morning by a commercial helicopter, west of the site of the April explosion that wrecked the DeepWater Horizon and killed 11 of its crew members. The Coast Guard said the 13 crewmen on the Mariner's platform were pulled from the water by rescuers on a service vessel, the Crystal Clear. One may have been injured, according to information the Associated Press got from the Coast Guard.

Late Thursday, Coast Guard officials said there was no sign of a leak, despite earlier reports that an oil sheen had been sighted on the surface of the water. Coast Guard cutters from New Orleans, Houston and Mobile were on the scene.

Mariner officials said there was a fire but dismissed the Coast Guard's use of the term "explosion."

"There was no blowout, no explosion, no injuries, no spill," Patrick Cassidy, Mariner's director of investor relations, told The New York Times. He said the company was investigating the incident but the cause of the fire has not been determined.

The facility, south of Louisiana's Vermilon Bay, is different from a rig, such as the DeepWater Horizon which exploded on April 20, leading to a disastrous spill. Production platforms are more stable and are usually brought in after an underwater well is drilled, Andy Radford of the American Petroleum Institute told AP. The Vermilon platform is in about 340 feet of water and -- contrary to an earlier report -- was in production for oil and gas. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said Mariner officials told him there were seven active wells at the platform, but they were shut down shortly after the fire broke out, the AP said. The blaze apparently started in barrels of light condensed oil on the platform.

The rig is about 200 miles west of BP's infamous Macondo well, which blew out in more than 5,000 feet of water after the April explosion. The BP well spilled more than 200 million gallons of oil into Gulf waters before it was capped last month.