HOUSTON (Reuters) - An inland shallow-water drilling rig capsized near Morgan City, Louisiana, while being towed to a salvage yard, the Coast Guard said on Friday.
There were no injuries, and navigation was not affected by the incident in the Charenton navigation channel south of U.S. 90 near Morgan City, Coast Guard spokesman Mike O'Berry said.
"This is not a major waterway," he said. "Nobody was on board. It was being towed."
The incident followed the April 20 explosion of the Transocean Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico, in which 11 people died. The rig sank and a disastrous oil spill has ensued.
A 210-foot-long barge rig, which worked swampland and shallow water oil and gas prospects, was involved in Friday's incident, the Coast Guard said.
It had a 20,000-gallon diesel tank but carried only about 200 gallons of fuel when it capsized. Spill containment boom was put around it as a precaution, the Coast Guard said.
O'Berry said the rig was owned by T. Moore Services in Franklin, Louisiana. A telephone call to the company was not returned.
(Reporting by Bruce Nichols)
