HOUSTON--The U.S. government on Friday launched an investigation into Mariner Energy Inc's Gulf of Mexico platform fire, and a light oil sheen spotted near the offshore facility was not believed to be a leak, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.
A Coast Guard helicopter crew surveying the platform spotted a small sheen, about a gallon, but it is thought to be related to Thursday's efforts to extinguish the fire, an agency spokesman said.
Investigators have boarded the damaged facility and are working to verify that it is not leaking crude oil into the Gulf. The cause of the fire, which forced the evacuation of the oil and gas production platform's 13-member crew, is not yet known.
On Thursday, Mariner's platform burst into flames. The accident follows BP Plc's disastrous Macondo well rupture on April 20 which caused the death of 11 workers and unleashed the world's worst offshore oil spill.
The U.S. government promised a vigorous probe of the Mariner accident. "We will use all available resources to ensure that we find out what happened, how it happened, and what enforcement action should be taken if any laws or regulations were violated," Michael Bromwich, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, said in a statement.
The platform is located about 100 miles (160 km) south of Vermilion, Louisiana, in shallow water. The facility is not affected by the U.S. government's six-month deepwater drilling moratorium, which only applies to rigs, not production platforms.