Azerbaijani officials have recovered and identified six people from the Socar platform incident in the Caspian Sea that resulted with dozens missing at sea, and a fire that is still burning.
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Image of Socar's West Azeri platform. From Socar Facebook. |
Several ships from Socar, BP, the Ministry of Emergency Situations and State Border Service, and helicopters have been searching for oilmen who fell into the sea from the first lifeboat that capsized, Socar said.
The incident that occurred on 4 December was due to a sharp change in weather conditions, which created serious problems for oil and gas operations on platform No. 10 in the Gunashli oilfield, according to a joint statement from the State Oil Co. of Azerbaijan Republic (Socar), Ministry of Emergency Situations, and Prosecutor General of Azerbaijan Republic.
Winds that reached 38-40m per second, in addition to 8-10m waves occurred the evening of the incident that broke the standpipe of the subsea gas line, which damaged the pipeline and caused a fire to break out.
“In order to avoid catastrophic complications that might arise, oil and gas communication systems going to the 10th deepsea platform were shut down, production of 28 oil and gas wells operating at the platform was suspended,” the statement said. “However, the fire still continues because of the remaining gas in the technological systems and pipe. The fire in the platform is assumed to pass to the oil and gas wells too.”
Workers on the platform followed Socar’s guidelines and evacuation plans by heading to two lifeboats, “in order to escape the fire and possible explosion.”
The two lifeboats were soon accompanied by the Vikhr-9 fireboat, Vikhr-5 fireboat, Avior diver, and Samir Guliyev tugboat. However, according to officials, the hurricane strengthened and none of the ships could approach the platform, and
it made it impossible to lower the lifeboats to the water and take them in tow by ships.
“At about 22:45 strong wind and high waves broke the hook on one of the lifeboats and it dropped into the sea with all men on it. Nearby vessels could rescue three workers and the body of a deceased was removed from the sea,” the statement said.
On 5 December, successful efforts to evacuate a total of 32 people occurred and one deceased body was removed from the water.
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