Tehran, February 03: Firefighters have managed to extinguish a huge fire engulfing a number of oil tanks on the Iranian southern island of Qeshm in the Persian Gulf.
Lightening struck an oil tank in Qeshm early on Wednesday, setting it ablaze with flames quickly extending to other nearby tanks, Head of Iranian Offshore Oil Company Heydar Yarveisi told Mehr news agency.
“There were no casualties on the ground,” Yarveisi added.
A crisis management committee was set up by Oil Ministr Massoud Mirkazemi to address the issue.
Last year, Iranian riggers succeeded in putting out a massive blaze caused by an oil well explosion in Naftshahr, Kermanshah province, after weeks of heavy operations.
Teams from the National Iranian Drilling Company (NIDC) specialized in extinguishing petroleum-based fires managed to control the blaze at Naftshahr oil well on July 6.
The massive blast that occurred on May 29 was blamed on a gas leak at the Naftshahr oil well. Three people working at the site were killed in the explosion and 12 others were injured.
According to NIDC Managing Director Heydar Bahmani, experts believe that it should have taken some six months to extinguish an oil well blaze similar to the one in Naftshahr.
Iran is the second largest oil producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries after Saudi Arabia. The Persian Gulf Islamic Republic sits on the world’s second-largest gas reserves after Russia.
——–Agencies