Azerbaijan says 29 missing after oil platform fire feared dead

Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev declared a day of mourning on Sunday for 29 missing oil workers now feared dead two days after a fire damaged a Caspian Sea oil platform.

Mr Aliyev also appointed a state commission, led by first deputy prime minister Yaqub Eyyubov, to investigate the deadliest incident in the country‘s oil industry.

High winds led to a gas explosion at the Guneshli platform, 110 kilometers (68 miles) off the Azeri coast, at 5.40pm local time on Friday.

One worker died and 29 others were missing after one of two lifeboats evacuating personnel capsized in the winds, State Oil Co. of Azerbaijan, or Socar, said.

Thirty-three people were rescued. The lifeboat was spotted on the sea about 40 kilometers from the accident site, Etibar Mirzayev, deputy minister of emergencies, told reporters Sunday in Baku.

Azerbaijan appealed to the coast guards of neighboring Turkmenistan and Iran to help retrieve the bodies, he said.

The platform, which was built in 1984, produced 900 metric tons of oil a day, the equivalent of 6,700 barrels, said Xosbaxt Yusifzada, the company‘s first vice-president.

Socar‘s total daily production is 22,000 tons, according to Yusifzada.

Production has been halted as the fire has yet to be extinguished, he said.

Socar is owned by the state of Azerbaijan, the largest oil producer in the former Soviet Union after Russia and Kazakhstan.

The company lost five workers in 2013 and 14 last year in similar accidents, said Mirvari Qahramanli, head of the Center for Protection of Oil Workers‘ Rights, a Baku-based advocacy group.

Bloomberg