One dead in North Sea oil rig accident

Dec. 8 (UPI) -- One person is dead and another is injured following an accident at a drilling rig on an oil field in Norway's waters of the North Sea, Aker BP said Friday.

Aker BP said there was a "serious accident" on the Maersk Interceptor drilling rig, contracted to tap into the Tambar oil field in the North Sea. One person is dead after falling in the sea while conducting maintenance work on the rig and another person was injured.

"This is a serious accident, and we will do our utmost to identify the cause," Aker BP CEO Karl Johnny Kersvik said in a statement. "We will make all resources available in the upcoming investigation."

The deceased was a Norwegian citizen working for Maersk Drilling, which had no statement on the accident as of Friday. The injured also worked for Maersk, the citizenship wasn't disclosed and the status was listed as non-critical.

Aker BP announced plans in March to develop the Tambar field using the Maersk Interceptor, which had two wells planned for the fourth quarter. When announcing the $204 million investment, the company said it was a major milestone that would extend the life of the field to 2028.

Tambar has gross reserves of 27 million barrels of oil equivalent. Production was closed after the accident.

Units of Maersk were among those targeted in a ransomware cyberattack from the so-called Petya or NotPetya bug that targeted thousands of government and private corporate servers across the globe in June. In October, the crew for the Maersk Resilient rig was awarded for a perfect record for safety for the year.

When christened in 2014, the Maersk Interceptor was the largest rig of its kind in Norway. The rig, built in 2013, is designed to operate in extremely harsh environments.