by Nurat Uthman
Five people were killed and one is missing after a fire on Wednesday at a Perenco oil platform off the coast of Gabon, the Anglo-French oil company said in a statement on Thursday.
“Following the incident which took place yesterday at the Perenco Simba field offshore Gabon, the fire has been extinguished and the site has been safely secured,” Perenco said.
“We deeply regret to confirm that there have been five fatalities and one person is still missing.”
The accident occurred on Wednesday afternoon at the Becuna platform during a “workover” operation, an intervention done inside oil wells, said Gabon’s oil ministry in an earlier statement, which reported four people dead and others injured.
The tragedy was the most serious in the history of oil exploitation in the central African country, the ministry said.
“Rest assured of my total engagement to elucidate the facts of this incident,” Gabon’s interim president Brice Oligui Nguema said on Facebook.
