BRASILIA, Brazil, Feb. 12 (UPI) -- A group working for oil company Petrobras off the Brazilian coast said Thursday five people died in explosion on an offshore production facility.
Contractor BW Offshore said "with deep sadness" it confirmed five fatalities during an explosion on floating production storage and offloading vessel Cidade de Sao Mateus. Two workers are in critical condition and four others are still missing from the Wednesday incident.
Brazilian producer Petrobras deployed the vessel at the oil-rich Santos Basin off the country's coast in mid-November.
BW Offshore said production in the field was halted and the unit was shut down as a result of the explosion.
Cidade de Sao Mateus is capable of producing up to 150,000 barrels of oil per day and has a storage capacity of 1.6 million barrels of oil.
There was no comment on potential environmental damage resulting from the explosion on board the FPSO.
There was no word on the incident from Petrobras.
