US Oil Platform on Fire in Gulf Of Mexico
An oil platform caught fire and was evacuated in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico offshore Louisiana in the early hours of Friday, though no injuries were reported, the U.S. Coast Guard said.
Fire-fighting crews worked to contain the fire on Friday near Breton Island, 50 miles (80 km) offshore New Orleans, the Coast Guard said. All 28 people were evacuated from the platform.
It was unclear what caused the incident or how much oil leaked into the ocean, but the Coast Guard said it has observed a 1.4 nautical mile rainbow sheen drifting southwest of the platform.
The platform, owned by Texas Petroleum Investment Co, has an estimated 4,000 barrels of crude oil on board, the Coast Guard said. It was not clear if the company also operated the well.
The well has been shut and production stopped, the Coast Guard said.
The company was not immediately available for comment.
The severity of Friday's incident is so far unclear, though it will likely cause jitters after the blowout of BP's Macondo oil well in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010 caused the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.
Initial response vessels were on scene and the cause of the incident was being investigated.
The Texas Petroleum Investment Co is a Houston-based, private exploration and production company with operations along the Gulf coast of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, according to its LinkedIn (LNKD) profile. The company was founded in 1989 and operates more than 2,000 producing wells, it said.
(Reporting by Arpan Varghese and Anupam Chatterjee in Bengaluru, Edward McAllister and Catherine Ngai in New York and Erwin Seba in Houston; Editing by Alden Bentley and Marguerita Choy)
