Fossil Energy – Fire
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.
According to Reuters Angolan authorities and the U.S. oil major announced this incident in statements.
The cause of the fire, which occurred in the basement deck of the multi-storey drilling production platform in the Block 14 concession, some 60 miles (97 km) offshore the Cabinda coast, is currently under investigation.
“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.
