A fire on a platform in Iran’s South Pars gas field was extinguished on Tuesday, Nov. 10, after 17 workers jumped into the sea to escape, according to Al Jazeera’s reporting, citing Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency.

Bushehr Province’s crisis management office later said all 17 workers were in good condition after boarding lifeboats and rescue craft. Three heavy rescue vessels had been sent to the platform to bring them back, the office said.

The Pars Oil and Gas Company said the fire broke out on a gas platform in Phase 14 of South Pars and was extinguished immediately, Fars reported.

An initial account from Kourosh Dehghan, Bushehr Province’s director general of crisis management, described an ongoing rescue effort.

“During the incident, 17 workers jumped into the sea to save their lives; rescue operations for them are currently underway,” Dehghan told Fars.

“Further details regarding the scale of the incident and the condition of the workers will be announced later,” he added. The crisis management office’s subsequent statement provided the update that all 17 were in good condition.

The cause remained uncertain. Officials were considering a gas leak or an operational mishap as possible explanations, according to Fars.

The affected platform accounts for 14.5 million cubic metres of gas production a day, Fars said, compared with total South Pars daily production of more than 700 million cubic metres.

South Pars is the world’s largest offshore natural gas field. Iran shares the reservoir with Qatar, a major gas exporter that calls its portion the North Dome.

The shared reservoir contains an estimated 1,800 trillion cubic feet, or 51 trillion cubic metres, of usable gas, Al Jazeera reported.

Sources