Fire on Chevron Oil Platform Offshore Angola Injures 17

Seventeen people were injured, four seriously, when a fire broke out in the early hours of Tuesday at Chevron’s deep-water Benguela Belize Lobito Tomboco (BBLT) oil platform, Angolan authorities and the U.S. oil major said in statements.

The cause of the fire, which occurred in the basement deck of the multi-story drilling production platform in the Block 14 concession some 60 miles (97 km) offshore the Cabinda coast, is currently under investigation.

“All of them are now on land and receiving appropriate medical care,” Angola’s National Agency for Petroleum, Gas and Biofuels said in its statement, referring to those injured.

“We received four injured workers today with moderate burns,” Doctor Welema Fonseca, a senior manager at the General Hospital of Cabinda, told Reuters.

Chevron said the incident occurred at a time when BBLT was undergoing annual maintenance as part of a scheduled shutdown and all production at the site stopped on May 1 this year.

The platform is operated by Chevron’s Angolan unit, Cabinda Gulf Oil Company, a top oil and gas producer in Sub-Saharan Africa’s second largest crude producer after Nigeria.

The heavy platform has living quarters for approximately 157 people, according to Chevron’s website. The fire broke out around 3 a.m. (0200 GMT) and all personnel have been accounted for, Chevron said.

(Reporting by Wendell Roelf; Additional reporting by Sfundo Parakozov and Bhargav Acharya;Editing by Alexander Winning, Alexandra Hudson)