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NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AFP) – An explosion ripped through an oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday forcing 13 people into the water, one of whom was injured, the US Coast Guard said.

There was no immediate sign of an oil spill and everything “appears to be” contained “at this time” Patrick Cassidy, a spokesman for Texas-based rig owner Mariner Energy told CNN.

“In an initial flyover by company personnel over the site, there was no hydrocarbon spill that was reported,” Cassidy said.

However the rig was still ablaze and the blast raised fresh pollution fears as the region struggles to recover from the largest ever maritime oil spill, caused by a similar explosion a few hundred miles (kilometers) to the east.

An estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil gushed out of a deepwater well ruptured after the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded on April 20 some 52 miles off the coast of Louisiana.

The explosion killed 11 workers and it took nearly three months to stem the flow of oil gushing out of the well some 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) below the surface.

The Mariner rig was operating in relatively shallow water, about 340 feet (103 meters), and was not drilling at the time of the explosion, Cassidy said.

There were seven wells producing approximately 1,400 barrels of oil in total in about 12 million cubic feet of gas in total, he said, adding that “the fire appears to have been quite a bit a ways from where the wells are.”

Thursday’s incident drew immediate condemnation from environmental groups frustrated with lax oversight of the offshore oil and gas industry.

“How many times are we going to gamble with lives, economies and ecosystems?” John Hocevar, Greenpeace USA Oceans Campaign Director, told AFP.

“It’s time we learn from our mistakes and go beyond oil.”

Helicopters rushed to the scene of the latest blast, some 90 miles (145 kilometers) south of Vermilion Bay in Louisiana, to fish out workers who apparently jumped into the sea to save themselves.

“All 13 are accounted for and they are all wearing some sort of an immersion suit that protects them from the water,” Coast Guard chief petty officer John Edwards told MSNBC.

Nine helicopters had been dispatched to the site, Edwards said, adding the extent of any injuries suffered by the workers was not immediately clear.

“Right now we’re focused on search and rescue and then, ultimately, as this thing progresses we’re going to be looking into the cause,” Edwards added.

Four Coast Guard cutters were also en route to the rig.

“We will continue to gather information as we respond, we obviously have response assets ready for deployment, should we receive reports of pollution in the water,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters.

Gibbs declined to say whether the president believed inspections of rigs in the Gulf of Mexico was moving fast enough in the wake of the BP disaster.

“Obviously we’ve had taken some, we took a series of steps after the BP incident,” Gibbs said.

“If this situation warrants, we’ll certainly update that.”

The Coast Guard said in a statement that it received a report from a nearby helicopter pilot at about 10:00 am (1ᒴ GMT) “stating that 13 people were in the water near an oil platform on fire.”

“The 13 people in the water were picked up by the OSV Crystal Clear and taken to another platform,” the Coast Guard said.

“Coast Guard helicopters are being utilized to transport the rescued to Terrebonne General Hospital.”

Mariner did not immediately returned requests for comments.

A oil rig explosion explosion in the Gulf of Mexico Thursday morning forced all 13 crew members to evacuate into the water.

Company officials said in a statement Thursday morning that the incident does not appear to have resulted in an oil leak. The Associated Press, however, has reported that the Coast Guard says there is a mile long, 100 foot-wide oil sheen near the platform.

The fire occurred on a platform about 100 miles south of Louisiana’s Vermillion Bay and west of the site of the Deepwater Horizon accident. The rig is in 320 feet of water, much shallower than the mile-deep well operated by BP that caused a massive oil spill this summer.

The shallower water would make an attempt to plug any leak significantly easier.

The Coast Guard dispatched helicopters, airplanes, and four cutters to the scene. The crew members had evacuated the rig in immersion suits and were picked up in the water by an oil service boat. The company says no injuries have been reported.

The facility, Vermillion Block 380, is owned by Mariner Energy Inc., an independent oil and gas exploration, development, and production company based in Houston. The company holds 350 offshore exploration leases, with 110 currently in development, according to the company�s website.

The platform collected production from seven wells producing about 1,400 barrels of oil per day and 9 million cubic feet of gas. Production was shut down, the company said, before the crew evacuated.

An oil rig explosion explosion was reported off the Gulf Coast approximately 80 miles from Louisiana, located west of BP’s oil spill.

The Coast Guard told the Associated Press that all 13 people on the rig are safe and only one injury was reported. The severity of the injury is unknown.

The blast was initially spotted by a helicopter flying overhead.

Two airplanes, seven Coast Guard helicopters, and three cutters were deployed to the site of the explosion. They reportedly came from New Orleans, Houston, and Mobile, Ala.

The Department of Homeland Security told AP that the shallow water rig was in production at the time with about 58,800 gallons of oil and 900,000 cubic feet of gas generated per day.

In April, the Deepwater Horizon oil derrick exploded, killing 11 and leaked more than 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

The Crystal Clear, a 110-foot boat, was in the Gulf doing routine maintenance work on oil rig explosions and platforms. When Capt. Dan Shaw arrived at the scene of the blast, the workers were holding hands in the water, where they had been for two hours. They were thirsty and tired.

“We gave them soda and water, anything they wanted to drink,” Shaw said. “They were just glad to be on board with us.”

Shaw said the blast was so sudden that the crew did not have time to get into lifeboats. They did not mention what might have caused the blast.

“They just said there was an explosion, there was a fire,” Shaw said. “It happened very quick.”

Crew members were being flown to a hospital in Houma. The Coast Guard said one person was injured, but the company said there were no injuries. All of them were released by early Thursday evening.

Jindal met with some of the survivors. He would not identify them except to say most were from Louisiana.

Environmental groups and some lawmakers said the incident showed the dangers of offshore drilling, and urged the Obama administration to extend a temporary ban on deepwater drilling to shallow water, where this platform was located.

“How many accidents are needed and how much environmental and economic damage must we suffer before we act to contain and control the source of the danger: offshore drilling?” said Rep. Frank Pallone, a New Jersey Democrat.

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Mike Gravitz, oceans advocate for Environment America, said President Barack Obama “should need no further wake-up call to permanently ban new drilling.”

There are about 3,400 platforms operating in the Gulf, according to the American Petroleum Institute. Together they pump about a third of the America’s domestic oil, forming the backbone of the country’s petroleum industry.

Platforms are vastly different from oil rig explosions like BP’s Deepwater Horizon. They are usually brought in after wells are already drilled and sealed.

“A production platform is much more stable,” said Andy Radford, an API expert on offshore oil drilling. “On a drilling rig, you’re actually drilling the well. You’re cutting. You’re pumping mud down the hole. You have a lot more activity on a drilling rig.”

In contrast, platforms are usually placed atop stable wells where the oil is flowing at a predictable pressure, he said. A majority of platforms in the Gulf do not require crews on board.

Many platforms, especially those in shallower water, stand on legs that are drilled into the sea floor. Like a giant octopus, they spread numerous pipelines and can tap into many wells at once.

Video: Explosion reignites fears in Gulf (on this page)

Platforms do not have blowout preventers, but they are usually equipped with a series of redundant valves that can shut off oil and gas at different points along the pipeline.

Numerous platforms were damaged during hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The storms broke pipelines, and oil spilled into the Gulf. But the platforms successfully kept major spills from happening, Radford said.

“Those safety valves did their job,” he said.

Industry representatives sought to minimize Thursday’s incident and distance it from the well blowout in April.

“We have on these platforms on any given year roughly絤 fires,” said Allen Verret, executive director of the Offshore Operators Committee.

Federal authorities have cited Mariner Energy and related entities for 10 accidents in the Gulf of Mexico over the last four years, according to safety records from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement.

The accidents range from platform fires to pollution spills and a blowout, according to accident-investigation reports from the agency formerly known as the Minerals Management Service.

In 2007, welding sparks falling onto an oil storage tank caused a flash fire that slightly burned a contract worker. The Minerals Management Service issued a $35,000 fine.

Mariner Energy Inc. focuses on oil and gas exploration and production in the Gulf. In April, Apache Corp., another independent oil company, announced plans to buy Mariner in a cash-and-stock deal valued at $3.9 billion, including the assumption of about $1.2 billion of Mariner’s debt. That deal is pending.

On Friday, BP was expected to begin the process of removing the cap and failed blowout preventer from its ruptured well, another step toward completion of a relief well that would seal the leak permanently. The Deepwater Horizon exploded April 20, setting off a three-month leak that totaled 206 million gallons of oil.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Contradictory reports have been issued in the wake of of an oil rig explosion explosion in the Gulf of Mexico Thursday, some 80 miles south of Louisiana’s Vermillion Bay.

Early reports of a mile-long sheen on the water have been contradicted by numerous fly-overs that have failed to find any oil.

The rig, designated Vermillion Oil Platform 380, is owned by Mariner Energy, and is staffed by 13 oil workers.

All 13 workers survived the incident, but one is injured, and rescue crews are working to transport the worker to a medical facility.

The rig, situated in 340 feet of water, is an oil-production platform, not a drilling rig. That means it is not susceptible to a natural gas “blowout,” such as the one that destroyed BP’s Deepwater Horizon platform earlier this year, dumping an estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil into the ocean.

There is no word on what caused the explosion at Vermillion Oil Platform 380, or the integrity of the remaining structure.

“We obviously have response assets ready for deployment, should we receive reports of pollution in the water,” said White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs during a daily briefing Thursday.

GRAND ISLE, La.

UPDATED at 12:57 EDT: An offshore petroleum platform exploded and was burning Thursday in the Gulf of Mexico about 80 miles off the Louisiana coast, west of the site where BP’s undersea well spilled after a rig explosion.

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The Coast Guard says no one was killed in the blast, which was reported by a commercial helicopter flying over the area Thursday morning. All 13 people aboard the rig have been accounted for, with one injury. The extent of the injury was not known.

Coast Guard Cmdr. Cheri Ben-Iesau said some of those from the rig were spotted in emergency flotation devices.

IN PICTURES: Life on an oil rig explosion

Seven Coast Guard helicopters, two airplanes and three cutters were dispatched to the scene from New Orleans, Houston and Mobile, Ala., Ben-Iesau said. She said authorities do not know whether oil was leaking from the site.

The Department of Homeland Security said the platform was in about 2,500 feet of water and owned by Mariner Energy of Houston. DHS said it was not producing oil and gas.

The Deepwater Horizon rig leased by BP was in about 5,000 feet of water when it exploded and sank in April, killing 11 workers and triggering a leak of about ᎎ million gallons of oil.

IN PICTURES: Life on an oil rig explosion

An oil rig explosion explosion in the Gulf of Mexico has been reported by the United States Coast Guard. The USCG is investigating an oil and gas platform explosion Thursday in the Gulf of Mexico west of the recent catastrophic BP oil spill that spewed oil into the region for months.

The rig – which is Mariner Energy’s Vermilion oil and gas platform – exploded about 80 miles south of Vermilion Bay, off the coast of Louisiana around 10:30 a.m. on Thursday morning. U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Casey Ranel said there were seven helicopters, two airplanes and four cutters in the area, Bloomberg reported.

The crew of 13 were all on the rig and have all been accounted for, a spokesman said while communicating with CNN.

SAN FRANCISCO — An offshore oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico has exploded with at least one person reported missing so far, according to media reports Thursday. The rig is located 80 miles south of the Vermillion Bay in the Louisiana coast and is to the west of the oil rig explosion blast in April. About 12 people are said to be in the water although their condition is not known yet, according to CNN. The rig is owned by Mariner Energy , the network said. Shares of Mariner Energy are down 4.4% to $22.32 in recent activity.

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Contradictory reports have been issued in the wake of of an oil rig explosion explosion in the Gulf of Mexico Thursday, some 80 miles south of Louisiana’s Vermillion Bay.

Early reports of a mile-long sheen on the water have been contradicted by numerous fly-overs that have failed to find any oil.

The rig, designated Vermillion Oil Platform 380, is owned by Mariner Energy, and is staffed by 13 oil workers.

All 13 workers survived the incident, but one is injured, and rescue crews are working to transport the worker to a medical facility.

The rig, situated in 340 feet of water, is an oil-production platform, not a drilling rig. That means it is not susceptible to a natural gas “blowout,” such as the one that destroyed BP’s Deepwater Horizon platform earlier this year, dumping an estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil into the ocean.

There is no word on what caused the explosion at Vermillion Oil Platform 380, or the integrity of the remaining structure.

“We obviously have response assets ready for deployment, should we receive reports of pollution in the water,” said White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs during a daily briefing Thursday.

WASHINGTON, DC – An oil rig explosion off the coast of Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico has exploded, sending all 13 oil workers into the Gulf, one of whom remains missing. A search and rescue effort by the U.S. Coast Guard is already underway. The explosion comes shortly after oil finally stopped flowing into the Gulf (for the moment)
from another rig that had been severely damaged by a large
explosion. Fortunately, early reports say this explosion occurred at an oil rig explosion that is not currently producing, drastically reducing the potential for further environmental damage.

Despite strong encouragement from many liberals and environmental activists, that crisis
did not secure sweeping energy reform legislation or the full Democratic backing of long-sought cap and trade proposals. Even President Obama’s offshore drilling moratorium was initially knocked down
by a state court. In the wake of that long and difficult episode, many
are greeting this most recent event with deep, almost macabre cynicism
about our ability to learn from disaster.