Incident Report

Subject:                      Fire Damages part of Petrobras Oil Rig

Date of Email reporting Incident: 05/07/2007 

Report Detail:

A fire damaged part a huge Brazilian offshore oil rig that helped make the nation self-sufficient in petroleum.
State-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA (nyse: PBR - news - people ) said late Wednesday that the fire broke out in a room containing gas compression units on the P-50 rig off Brazil's south Atlantic coast. Production was temporarily disrupted, but was partially restored later.

No one was hurt during the Wednesday afternoon blaze and no oil leaked into the sea from the rig, the company said.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva last year inaugurated the rig, which ushered in Brazilian independence from foreign oil.
The rig has an output capacity of 180,000 barrels of oil and 6 million cubic meters of natural gas a day from Albacora Leste field in the Campos Basin off the coast of Rio de Janeiro.

It was the second fire at a Petrobras installation in less than a week. A fire last weekend damaged a refinery near Rio de Janeiro.
Copyright 2007 Associated Press.