Update: An earlier report on Saturday on this incident mentioned 32 employees had died, citing the top of an impartial committee.

By Nailia Bagirova

BAKU, Dec 5 (Reuters) – At least one employee was killed and 30 others had been lacking on Saturday after an Azeri oil platform caught hearth throughout excessive winds within the Caspian Sea on Friday, state vitality firm SOCAR mentioned.

As hopes of discovering survivors light, SOCAR mentioned a extreme storm was hampering rescue efforts at its platform within the Guneshli oil subject.

“One body was found and a search-and-rescue operation for 30 missing workers is under way,” it mentioned in an announcement, including that 32 employees had been safely evacuated.

Earlier on Saturday, the top of Azerbaijan’s Oil Workers’ Rights Protection Committee, Mirvari Gakhramanly, advised Reuters 32 employees had died and 42 had been rescued in a single day.

The hearth began after the storm broken a pure gasoline pipeline, inflicting the platform’s partial collapse.

Oil manufacturing on 28 oil wells linked to the ability was suspended and all oil and gasoline pipelines, which hyperlink the platform with the land, had been blocked as a security precaution, SOCAR added within the joint assertion with the emergency ministry and the nation’s chief prosecutor.

“The fire in the gas pipeline has not been completely extinguished and it has not been ruled out that it could spread to oil and gas wells near the platform,” it mentioned.

Azeri President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree to create a particular fee to cope with the accident and management the rescue operation. A prison case was opened to analyze the incident.

About 60 % of SOCAR’s oil manufacturing passes by way of the platform the place the fireplace broke out, which means the state firm’s output might be quickly hit.

The bulk of Azerbaijan’s oil is produced elsewhere, nevertheless, together with on fields operated by British oil main BP.

BP Azerbaijan was not accessible for touch upon Saturday on whether or not opposed climate within the Caspian or the fireplace on SOCAR’s platform had affected its manufacturing.

In a separate incident, SOCAR mentioned on Friday that three employees had been lacking from one other of its offshore oil platforms within the Caspian after an accident through the storm. The employees had been nonetheless lacking as of Saturday.

Fourteen employees had been killed in accidents on SOCAR’s oil and gasoline platforms in 2014. (Writing by Margarita Antidze; Editing by Helen Popper)

(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015.

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