NEW YORK TIMES: An oil sheen one mile long was spotted on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico hours after an offshore oil platform exploded there on Thursday morning, the United States Coast Guard said. It was unclear how much oil was leaking, and whether it was spilling from the damaged platform or welling up from beneath the surface of the Gulf. But the prospect of a second oil leak was unnerving for a region still recovering from the environmental and financial toll of the months-long spill at a BP well earlier this year. Coast Guard officials said the sheen measured one mile long by 100 feet wide. But Petty Officer Elizabeth Bordelon of the Coast Guard’s Eighth District that the Coast Guard had been told by Mariner Energy, the platform’s operator, that the platform was not producing and gas at the time of the fire. The reports of a sheen contradicted earlier statements by Mariner that there had been no sightings of a spill after an early survey of the scene. MORE
UPDATE: By early evening, the workers had been rescued with no serious injuries reported and the fire had been put out. Coast Guard officials said that no oil could be seen on the water near the platform, contradicting an earlier report. MORE