One Dead, Two Injured on Board COSL Rig

One person has died and two other were injured as a result of the breaking wave that hit the drilling rig COSL Innovator on Wednesday, December 30, Statoil and COSL confirmed.

COSL Innovator is under contract to Statoil at the Troll field in the North Sea, west of Bergen.

As informed, the two injured people have been taken ashore for medical treatment.

“COSL and Statoil were notified at 5 pm on Wednesday 30 December that three people had been injured when a breaking wave hit COSL Innovator. Statoil and COSL have mobilized their emergency response organizations,” Statoil said.

The rig had been taken off the well as a result of the bad weather before the incident occurred. The breaking wave also caused some damage to the rig’s accommodation module.

The rig has started moving to shore under its own power, while evacuation takes place. Evacuees were flown ashore.

Separately, the harsh weather has forced BP to evacuate 235 workers from its Valhall platform in the North Sea.

Namely, the workers were partially evacuated by helicopter on Thursday after a barge broke its anchor due to a storm and started drifting towards the platform, BP spokesman told Norway’s NRK Radio.