The rig reportedly went up in flames when a gas pipeline in the oil field was damaged in heavy wind.
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Deputy Minister of Emergency Situations Etibar Mirzayev said “27 people were rescued from the boat and three from the platform itself by the helicopter”. The company first expressed hope that the fire would be extinguished by the end of the day, but later said it was now expected to happen Monday morning.
Earlier in the day, a statement on the Azerbaijan oil rig fire said that 32 SOCAR workers had been safely evacuated but at least one person died.
The oil rig’s stricken gas line had been damaged at by winds of up to 144 kilometres an hour, the prosecution service said.
About 60 percent of SOCAR’s oil production passes through the platform where the fire broke out.
SOCAR said a search-and-rescue operation for the 30 missing workers is now underway.
“We are looking for 29 people”. The result was a fire that still continued on Saturday.
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.
Socar is owned by the state of Azerbaijan, the largest oil producer in the former Soviet Union after Russian Federation and Kazakhstan.
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.
It is also possible the number of deaths has been greatly overestimated, and reports on the number of SOCAR workers trapped in the Azerbaijan oil rig fire has varied.
Azeri state energy company SOCAR was not immediately available to comment.
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The Azeri Press Agency reported there were 63 workers on the platform when the fire started Friday, but SOCAR has so far not released precise figures.
