Dubai helicopter crash kills 7, shuts oilfield
DUBAI (Reuters) - A helicopter crashed into an oil rig off the coast of Dubai on Wednesday killing all seven people on board and forcing the closure of the Rashid oilfield, the authorities said.
Dubai produces a fraction of the oil output of the United Arab Emirates, the world's fifth-largest oil exporter. Dubai pumped around 65,000 barrels per day in 2007, according to trade estimates, out of the UAE's output of around 2.5 million bpd.
The helicopter, which was traveling from Dubai's main international airport to the oilfield around 70 kilometers off the coast of Dubai, crashed onto the deck of the Maersk jack-up drilling rig, they said.
"The aircraft then broke up and fell into the sea," Petrofac, the operator of Dubai government's offshore oilfields, said in a statement. It declined to say how much the oilfield produces.
"Immediately following the incident, a fire broke out on the main deck of the drilling rig which was quickly contained and extinguished... All operations on the Rashid field have been suspended and the platform and drilling rig have been secured."
The helicopter was carrying an American, a Briton, a Pakistani, a Filipino, a Venezuelan and two Indians, none of whom survived, the civil aviation authority said.
The cause of the crash was not immediately known.
"The General Civil Aviation Authority of the United Arab Emirates immediately set up an investigation team to find out the cause of the aircraft crash," it said in a statement.
Dubai's output peaked in 1991 at over 400,000 bpd. Despite its decline, Dubai is still used as a benchmark for prices for Middle East crude.
Dubai's output comes from four main fields including Rashid. The others are Fateh, southwest Fateh and Falah.
The United Arab Emirates is a seven-member federation including the Gulf trade and tourism hub of Dubai. Over 90 percent of the UAE's oil is located in Abu Dhabi.
(Reporting by Lin Noueihed, Simon Webb and Summer Said in Dubai and Annika Breidthardt in Singapore; editing by James Jukwey)
