24 October 2012, Sweetcrude, LAGOS – SEPLAT Petroleum Development Company Limited, the operator of NPDC/Seplat Joint Venture, has confirmed the death of a member of staff of a third party contractor and injury to 10 others during a fire incident at its Ovhor Remote manifold site.
The company, which operates Oil Mining Leases 4, 38 and 41 on behalf of the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, NPDC – a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleeum Corporation – said the fire occurred during a maintenance work on the facility.
It said the Ovhor remote manifold site had been shutdown about two weeks ago after the detection of a leaking valve on a section of the Trans Forcados Trunckline managed by Shell Petroleum Development Company.
The company took advantage of the shutdown period to carry out scheduled maintenance at the site, while waiting for Shell to resolve the leakage problem.
It was during the scheduled maintenance work that fire erupted at the facility, killing the staff of a third party contractor working on site at the time and injuring 10 others.
Seplat said in a statement: “The company was taking advantage of the shutdown period to carry out scheduled maintenance at the site, while waiting for Shell to resolve the leakage problem.
“Unfortunately, a fire incident occurred during the scheduled maintenance work at the facility. Immediately, Seplat’s robust Integrated Incident Response Plan was activated.
“Even though our robust Integrated Incident Response Plan was fully activated with the workers immediately evacuated from the site, a fatality was recorded while ten others were injured.
“The deceased was a member of staff of a third party contractor working on site at the time.”