An offshore natural gas platform sank in the Caribbean Sea off the Venezuela coast on Thursday, before evacuating 95 workers on board.
The incident occurs within a month of an oil rig collapse in the Gulf of Mexico that triggered a massive oil slick threatening wildlife, fisheries, shipping and tourism along the Louisiana Coast in the United States.
The accident on the Aban Pearl platform off eastern Sucre state in the early hours of Thursday was made public by President Hugo Chavez through his account on the social networking site Twitter.
He said the rig sank at around 2 a.m. local time. The workers were evacuated safely from the platform with the help of a frigate and boats, he added. Two Navy vessels are patrolling the area.
The rig's Indian owners, Aban Offshore Ltd, said the semi-submersible drilling rig had been under contract to a company owned by the Venezuelan government.
The rig, built in 1977, was drilling some of the 16 gas wells in the Mariscal Sucre offshore natural gas project in the extreme north-east of Sucre state close to the Caribbean islands of Trinidad and Tobago.
The project, launched last year and visited by Chavez, is being developed by Venezuela's state oil company, PDVSA, without private-sector participation, reports said.
Venezuela's Energy and Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said the Dragon-6 natural gas field being drilled by the Aban Pearl had been stabilized and that there was no environmental threats.
He made it clear that "The safety valves activated along with an additional security mechanism, which allows us to affirm that we have stabilized the well and there is no risk of any kind of gas leak."
An investigation has been ordered into the accident, Ramirez added.
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