AN oil platform exploded and burned off the Louisiana coast yesterday in the second such disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in less than five months.
This time, the US Coast Guard said there was no leak and no one was killed.
The coastguard initially reported yesterday that an oil sheen a mile long had begun to spread from the site of the blast, about 200 miles west of the source of BP’s massive spill.
But hours later, Commander Cheri Ben-Iesau said crews were unable to find any spill.
The company that owns the platform, Houston, Texas-based Mariner Energy, did not know what caused the explosion.
Mariner officials said there were seven active production wells on the platform and they were shut down shortly before the fire broke out.
Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal said the company told him the fire began in 100 barrels of light oil condensate, but officials did not know yet what sparked the flames.
The coastguard said Mariner Energy initially reported the oil sheen. In a public statement, the company said an initial flyover did not show any oil.
Photos from the scene showed at least five ships floating near the platform. Three of them were shooting great plumes of water onto the machinery. Light smoke could be seen drifting across the deep blue waters of the gulf.
By late afternoon, the fire on the platform was out.
The platform is in about 340ft of water and about 100 miles south of Louisiana’s Vermilion Bay. Its location is considered shallow water, much less than the 5,000ft where BP’s well spewed oil and gas for three months after the April rig explosion that killed 11 workers.
A US Homeland Security update said the platform was producing 58,800gallons of oil and 900,000cubic feet of gas per day. The platform can store 4,200gallons of oil.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the administration had “response assets ready for deployment should we receive reports of pollution in the water”.
All 13 of the platform’s crew members were rescued from the water. They were found huddled together in insulated survival outfits.
Yesterday’s fire came just hours after Greenpeace protesters fighting to end deep-water drilling were arrested in the Arctic.
Jake Molloy, regional spokesman for the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) in Aberdeen, said oil workers around the world, including the North Sea, would be “terrified” by the latest news.
He said: “This incident is obviously going to heighten concerns which have been in the industry since the Deepwater Horizon disaster.”
Mr Molloy added: “We have endeavoured to look at every aspect that could have had an impact since the BP incident and addressed them – but now we have a whole new batch of concerns with this.”
Andrew Reid, Aberdeen-based managing director of energy consultancy Douglas-Westwood, said the latest incident could trigger a massive review of the entire industry in America.
He said: “This incident could prompt a review of everything they are doing in the Gulf. It is hard to consider what the consequences of that would be.”
Meanwhile, crews are expected to try to remove the blowout preventer on BP's ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico in the next 24 hours. But first, crews must pull a capping stack on top of the ruptured well, which was used to help seal it. The cap is expected to be taken off today.
Officials plan to detach the blowout preventer from the well and replace it with a new one, a procedure aimed at paving the way for a final fix. But the effort to seal the ruptured oil well permanently has stalled because of turbulent seas.
BP had planned to begin work on Monday, but bad weather led to the postponement.
Removal of the device will need to be done carefully, as the blowout preventer may hold valuable forensic evidence as to why it failed on April 20.
The well has been capped since July 15.