Bodies recovered from Brazilian oil installation

A team is surveying conditions on a production platform off the Brazilian coast after five workers died as a result of an explosion, BW Offshore said Friday.

The contractor earlier this week confirmed five fatalities during an explosion on floating production storage and offloading vessel Cidade de Sao Mateus. The company said the bodies of the deceased workers are back onshore and identified as four Brazilian nations and one Indian.

While parts of the FSPO are intact, the company said it has crew on the scene to determine if conditions are safe to continue with search and rescue efforts.

Four crewmembers are still missing and seven are being treated for injuries. There were 74 people onboard the installation at the time of Wednesday's incident.

Brazilian producer Petrobras deployed the vessel at the oil-rich Santos Basin off the country's coast in mid-November.

Cidade de Sao Mateus is capable of producing up to 150,000 barrels of oil per day and has a storage capacity of 1.6 million barrels of oil.

BW Offshore said production in the field was halted and the unit was shut down as a result of the explosion.