NEW YORK, Feb 21: Fears of a terrorist attack gripped New York City residents for a while as a barge carrying fuel exploded and caught fire near an oil storage terminal off New York’s Staten Island on Friday,

However, law enforcement officials said there were no initial indications it was anything but an accident.

The blast at 10:10am sent flames and huge clouds of black smoke billowing into the sky south of Manhattan, where residents have been jittery and the police was on high alert since the Sept 11 attacks on the World Trade Center.

US crude oil futures soared more than $1 a barrel after reports of the fire. April crude traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange jumped to an intra-day high of $35.95 a barrel, surging $1.21.

The New York fire department officials said the barge was carrying propane. Shipping and oil trading sources later said the vessel contained heating oil or gasoline.

A New York fire department spokeswoman said one person was seriously burned in the fire, and two people were unaccounted for, at the Port Mobil terminal owned by ExxonMobil, the world’s largest oil company.

The terminal is in an industrial area but people on Staten Island and nearby New Jersey towns felt a blast and could smell the fumes.

An FBI spokesman Steve Kodak in Newark, New Jersey, told reporters there was no indication of terrorism. However, FBI officials in Washington said they were still examining it because a refinery is the type of infrastructure terrorists might target.

The Department of Homeland Security “is closely monitoring the situation with local state authorities and other federal agencies as well as assisting in the coordination of the response,” said department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse was quoted as saying.

According to radio reports an energy trader Ed Silliere said the barge was carrying 125,000 barrels of heating oil and had loaded at the Port Mobil terminal off the New York borough of Staten Island.

The barge is owned by Bouchard Transportation Company Inc. of Hicksville, New York.