A natural gas platform fire near Port Said, Egypt, continued burning Monday, one week after it first broke out. The blaze, located at the Temsah field roughly 60 kilometers from the northern entrance to the Suez Canal, has begun to diminish in intensity, though full extinguishment could still take several days.
Crews are working to reduce the gas supply feeding the fire from the undersea reservoir below. A third drilling vessel traveling from Italy will help bore angled shafts so concrete can be pumped in to seal the well. The fire originated the previous Tuesday with an explosion that wrecked a drilling rig, then reignited after an initial suppression. All 150 workers were safely evacuated; the platform is operated by Petrobel and co-owned by ENI, British Petroleum, and Egypt's General Petroleum Corporation.
Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this AFP wire report, first published in August 2004, in its own words.