SOCAR employed over 61,000 employees in 2014 (albeit only a fraction are based offshore) and during the year seen a staggering 14 worker deaths over several incidents – a figure that would shock most Western Operators. However the company went on to increase that number in 2015, being responsible for the deaths of 34 employees during the year, most of these deaths occured when its Gunlashi No 10 platform was engulfed in an inferno that claimed 30 lives and took almost 3 months to completely extinguish.

This year, including all missing workers from yesterdays offshore walkway collapse – SOCAR will have been responsible for the deaths of 11 workers in 2016.

To put matters into perspective the UK Oil Industry employed around 260,000 people in 2014 and has seen 2 worker deaths from 2014 to 2016.

The figures are damning and the timeline shows a repeat of similar incidents that can only question the integrity of previous investigations and whether any lessons learned have been deployed throughout the organisation to prevent further fatalities.

In 2014 14 workers were killed in several different incidents, and of particular note were two instances on the 23rd of October and the 6th of November where part of the installation collapsed into the sea.

in 2015 34 workers were killed in several different incidents. The biggest tragedy occured on the 4th of December when the Gunashli No 10 Platform was engulfed in flames and left 30 workers dead and a further 31 injured. An additional 3 workers were also swept away the same day when a section of an offshore platform collapsed into the Caspian Sea.

Yesterday Oil and Gas People reported on an incident that left 10 workers feared dead after a section of an offshore walkway collapsed into the Caspian Sea in 90 mph winds. Of those 10, 5 of the workers were working on the walkway during the 90mph winds – this practice would simply not be acceptable anywhere in the North Sea.

Media reports of all fatal accidents contain comments from SOCAR advising a ‘special commission’ has been set up to investigate the incident, however no special commission reports for any of the previous fatal incidents were made available to Oil and Gas People upon request.

SOCAR also appears to pass some of the cause for the incidents onto ‘high winds’ or ‘adverse weather’ as if implying that offshore installations are not designed to withstand such conditions.

The combination of multiple fatal accidents and numerous non fatal accidents over a period of years gives a clear indication that SOCAR’s attitude towards safety is failing the organisation, it’s employees and their families.

With oil and gas industry workers giving first hand reports of poor safety standards, inadequate maintenance and substandard conditions aboard SOCAR installations it’s no surprise that incidents like those listed above are a frequent occurrence to the organisation.

SOCAR’s integrity then becomes a bit more questionable when you factor in that for unexplained reasons SOCAR owns two $59m Yachts that are regularly used by the country’s President. It has invested over 200m euros in a Montenegrin Holiday Resort and it owns various Multi-million pound properties around the world, however for some reason the company appears to be failing to adequately finance safety and maintenance on board it’s installations.

It is clear that SOCAR needs to completely overhaul it’s safety systems and maintenance programs to ensure no further serious incidents of a similar nature occur, and as Azerbaijan is a Member of the Council of Europe, it is felt that international governments should be applying pressure on the country to better regulate it’s offshore industry and aim towards bringing it in line with European or International Standards.