Azerbaijan says 29 missing after oil platform fire feared dead

Some 26 people have been rescued from the rig, which is owned by Azerbaijan’s state energy firm SOCAR, however other were thought to be trapped on it, with authorities refusing to confirm the number of casualties. One person was killed in the blaze.

The fire started after the storm damaged a natural gas pipeline, causing the platform’s partial collapse. Poor weather conditions are continuing to hamper rescue efforts.

Later on Saturday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan offered his condolences to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and expressed sympathy for families of the victims of the fire, wishing the injured a speedy recovery. 30 people are still missing.

Usifzade added rescuers were also searching for three more workers who had been swept into the sea in an accident on another oil platform on Friday.

In 1994, the government of Azerbaijan signed an agreement to develop the vast Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli field with a consortium of foreign companies, including Britain’s BP, Norway’s Statoil, and American oil and gas giants Chevron and Exxonmobil.

It’s unclear how much oil, if any, has been spilled into the Caspian Sea has a result of the fires.

The missing workers were in a lifeboat that fell into stormy seas, according to a joint statement issued late Saturday by SOCAR, the country’s emergency services and the prosecutor general’s office. All in all, 14 workers were killed in accidents on SOCAR’s oil and gas platforms in 2014.

Earlier this year, SOCAR president Rovnah Abdullayev announced plans to construct four new oil rigs over five years, costing around $4 billion.