Brazil's Petrobras evacuates offshore oil rig
Date: 15-Oct-02
Country: BRAZIL
The platform, called P-34, is located in the oil-rich Campos Basin, off the coast of Rio de Janeiro state, said a company spokesperson.
Petrobras could give no more details but said there were no injuries and all the platform's staff had been evacuated.
The problem is the latest in a string of embarrassing incidents for Petrobras and comes some 19 months after one of the company's prize platforms, the P-36, valued at about $1 billion, sank to the depths of the Campos Basin after an explosion rocked its structure.
Eleven workers were killed and their bodies went down with the rig. Photographs of the sinking platform were plastered across newspapers around the world and the incident dealt a blow to the company's image.
Also last year another platform, the P-7, spilled 26,000 liters of crude oil into the Campos Basin.
Petrobras' image has also suffered from a series of minor oil spills and accidents.