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An offshore oil platform exploded Thursday and was burning about 100 miles south of the Louisiana coast, with the Coast Guard reporting a mile-long oil sheen had spread from the site.

Coast Guard spokesman Chief Petty Officer John Edwards said no one was killed in the explosion and all were rescued and taken to a local hospital.

According to a statement from Mariner Energy, the owner of the rig, no injuries were reported The cause of the fire is unknown.

Seven Coast Guard helicopters, two airplanes and three cutters were dispatched to the site of the Vermillion Oil Platform, about 100 miles south of Vermillion Bay, La. The location is west of a site where a BP oil rig exploded in April, spilling millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

All 13 people aboard the rig were found floating in the water, sticking close together, Edwards said.

"These guys had the presence of mind, used their training to get into those gumby suits before they entered the water. It speaks volumes to safety training and the importance of it because beyond getting off the rig there's all the hazards of the water such as hypothermia and things of that nature," Edwards said.

All were were flown to a hospital in Houma to be checked over.

The platform is a fixed petroleum platform that was in production at the time of the fire, according to a homeland security operational update obtained by The Associated Press.

The update said the platform was producing about 58,800 gallons of oil and 900,000 cubic feet of gas per day. The platform can store 4,200 gallons of oil.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said President Barack Obama was in a national security meeting and did not know whether Obama had been informed of the explosion.

"We obviously have response assets ready for deployment should we receive reports of pollution in the water," Gibbs said.

Mariner Energy focuses on oil and gas exploration and production in the Gulf of Mexico. In April, Apache Corp., another independent petroleum 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.

Apache spokesman Bob Dye said the platform is in shallow water. Responding to any oil spill in shallow water would be much easier than in deep water, where crews depend on remote-operated vehicles access equipment on the sea floor. Mariner said in initial flyover for no hydrocarbon spill.

A company report said the well was drilled in the third quarter of 2008.

The platform is about 200 miles west of BP's blown-out well. On Friday, BP was expected to begin the process of removing the cap and failed blowout preventer, another step toward completion of a relief well that would put a finals eal on the well. The BP-leased rig Deepwater Horizon exploded April 20, killing 11 people and setting off a three-month leak that totaled 206 million gallons of oil.

Material from NPR's Kathy Lohr and the Associated Press was used in this report. Copyright 2010 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.