SOCAR said a search-and-rescue operation for the 30 missing workers is now underway.
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SOCAR reported the missing workers were in a lifeboat that fell into the ocean. The workers in the other lifeboat were rescued Saturday.
Prosecutors on Saturday opened an inquiry into possible “breaches of fire safety regulations”. Chad’s government in November imposed a state of emergency in the area.
The oil rig’s stricken gas line had been damaged at 1340 GMT on Friday by winds of up to 144 kilometres an hour (90 mph), the prosecution service said.
Came at least a man killed in a fire on an Azeri oil platform in the Caspian Sea.
As hopes of finding survivors faded, SOCAR said a severe storm was hampering rescue efforts at its platform in the Guneshli oil field. We regard those whom we have not found so far as missing… All in all, 14 workers were killed in accidents on SOCAR’s oil and gas platforms in 2014.
A mainly Muslim country of nine million wedged between Russian Federation and Iran, Azerbaijan is a key partner in projects to deliver Caspian Sea energy reserves to the West through pipelines to Turkey, bypassing Russian Federation.
Sources close to Azerbaijan’s state energy company SOCAR has announced that 32 have died on an oil platform in the Caspian Sea. Most of Azerbaijan’s oil is produced elsewhere, including fields operated by BP, a British oil company.
SOCAR also said earlier that workers were missing after an accident at another offshore oil platform during the storm.
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The company lost five workers in 2013 and 14 a year ago in similar accidents, said Mirvari Qahramanli, head of the Center for Protection of Oil Workers’ Rights, a Baku-based advocacy group.
