Oil rig fire sparks fresh pollution fears

The oil industry has today found itself under renewed pressure to address safety concerns following another fire on an oil and gas platform in the Gulf of Mexico.

The fire forced 13 workers on the Vermilion Oil Rig 380, situated about 90 miles south of the Louisiana Coast, to abandon the platform. The operator of the rig, Mariner Energy, said none of the workers who were forced to jump into the sea in immersion suits were injured.

The US coastguard confirmed that the workers were rescued and taken by ship to a nearby platform and from there to hospital in Houma, Louisiana, to be medically assessed.

Mariner is in the process of being acquired by the Apache oil company in a deal worth an estimated $3.9bn (£2.5bn). The sale has not yet been completed and shares in both companies fell following news of the fire.

The accident comes just six months after the explosion at BP's Deepwater Horizon well sparked the biggest oil spill in US history and will once again raise concerns about drilling in the region.

Coastguards said there is no evidence of an oil slick around the Vermilion rig and according to reports the fire broke out on a facility above the water, at some distance from the wells.

Nevertheless, this latest accident could not have come at a worse time for the industry, just 24 hours after a group of oil companies including Mariner staged a rally in Houston protesting against the government's moratorium on deep water drilling in the Gulf.

About 5,000 employees had been bussed in for the demonstration, which came a day after a federal judge rejected the Obama administration's request to dismiss an oil industry lawsuit challenging its six-month ban on deep water drilling.

The White House has consistently maintained that the ban is necessary to give inspectors and regulators time to assess the current offshore drilling safety regime and establish whether or not new rules are necessary in the wake of the BP oil spill.

However, the judge ruled that the latest ban was fundamentally the same as a previous moratorium that he had overturned and as such the lawsuit can continue.