Major Oil Rig/Platform Accidents

1911 March 25th. USA, New York City, Triangle Shirt-Waist Factory fire killed 145 young workers

1980 March, North Sea, Ekofisk field : Alexander Keilland oil rig Sea broke up with fatigue fracture and capsized, killing 123 people.

1981 October, South China Sea: US oil drilling ship sank, killing 81 people.

1982 September, North Atlantic: U.S. oil rig Ocean Ranger keeled over, killing 84 people.

1984 February, US, Texas, Gulf of Mexico: oil rig explosion, one man was killed and two injured

1984 August, offshore Brazil, Campos Basin: explosion and fire on a Petrobas oil-drilling platform, Thirty-six workers drowned and 17 were injured

1985 January, North Sea: explosion in a pump room explosion on Glomar Arctic II rig, two men were killed and two injured

1988 July, North Sea: In the world's worst oil rig disaster, 167 people were killed when Occidental Petroleum's Piper Alpha oil rig Sea exploded after a gas leak.

1988 September, off the southeastern coast of Borneo: an oil rig owned by Total Petroleum Co. of France exploded and sank, four people died.

1988 September, North Sea : American-owned Ocean Odyssey drilling rig burst into flames, one person was killed and 66 people rescued uninjured

1989 May, US, Alaska, Cook Inlet, southwest of Anchorage1989: explosion and fire on an offshore oil platform owned by Union Oil Co. of California, three people were injured

1989 November, Gulf of Mexico: explosion on a Penrod Drilling Co. oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, 12 workers were injured, one seriously.

1991 August , North Sea: explosion on Fulmar Alpha platform owned by Shell, three people were injured.

1991 December, Brazil, off the coast of Sao Paulo: Petrobras tanker explosion, one crew-member died

1992 March, North Sea: A French-built Super Puma helicopter, carrying 15 workers and two crewmen, plunged into the Sea seconds after taking off from Cormorant Alpha platform to make a short hop to an accommodation vessel. Eleven men died.

1995 January, off the coast of Nigeria: explosion on a Mobil oil rig, thirteen people died and many were injured.

1995 November, Brazil, Sao Paulo: Petrobras pipeline fire, one person died and five were injured

1996 January, Gulf of Suez: explosion on a rig in the Morgan oil field in the Gulf of Suez, three people died and two were injured.

1998 July: explosion on the Glomar Arctic IV rig, two people died.

1998 December, Scotland, northeast of Aberdeen: One person died after plunging from the mobile drilling rig Petrolia.

1998 December fire at Petrobras's Gabriel Passos Refinery in Minas Gerais killed three workers.

2001 January, off the shore of Brazil, Campos Basin: fire on a Petrobras offshore natural gas platform in Campos Basin, two workers died.

2001 March 15th. Brazil, offshore Campos Basin: 3 explosions at the world's biggest offshore oil platform, a 40-stroy rig owned by Petrobas and located in the Roncador oil fields, 80 miles offshore, 10 people are presumed dead, around 165 were able to evacuate to a neighboring platform. Business Impact: The P-36 rig can produce up to 180,000 barrels of crude oil per day. All production was halted. The company might lose $50 million a month with the rig out of operation. Blue-chip Petrobras stock tumbled 6.7 percent to 50.40. The United Oil Workers Federation (FUP) accused the company of putting its workers at risk through cost and personnel cuts. According to union leaders some 81 workers have died in accidents over the last three years, in the last year and a half, 13 workers have been killed in 50 accidents in the Campos Basin alone.

The company has also suffered from a series of highly publicized oil spills in the last couple of years, including an environmental disaster in Rio de Janeiro's picturesque bay. The company has announced heavy investments in safety and measures to protect the environment. Campos Basin accounts for around 80 percent of Brazil's oil output. Petrobras lost its oil exploration monopoly in 1997, but remains the only company producing oil in Brazil.