Production at SOCAR emergency platform stopped

SOCAR has stopped production at emergency platform №10 at Azerbaijan’s Guneshli oil field in order to ease firefighting, the chief engineer of SOCAR’s Azneft production association, Balamirza Aliragimov, said.

“Connection with the platform has been cut off. We want to suspend production at the platform fully, not to reduce the volumes,” Trend cited him as saying.

The chief engineer said that five ships continue to extinguish the fire. “Due to the bad weather conditions, the work on connecting the water supply binding hasn't been completed yet,” he noted.

Aliragimov added that the underwater search for oil workers has been suspended due to the strong winds (23 meters per second with gusts up to 30 meters per second). “Despite the bad weather, the search for the missing oil workers has been continuing since the morning with helicopters," he said.

“There are a lot of flyovers and platforms in this water area. If we get any information regarding the oil workers, ships will be sent there,” the chief engineer stressed.

Aliragimov also said that experts of the Boots & Coots company are preparing a plan to prevent an oil spill after the fire is extinguished.