Rig leg towed to port

Press, 2 April 1980, Page 1

Rig leg towed to port

NZPA-Reuter Stavanger, Norway

A four-man inquiry team yesterday examined the severed leg of the “floating hotel” oil rig that Capsized in the. North' Sea on Thursday night, killing 123 oil workers. The 35m-long, 800-tonne hollow steel leg, which snapped in a gale, was towed in to a point just off Stavanger which, with the rest "Of Norway; marked a day of mourning yesterday. In a message of condolence to the families of the dead, Norway’s King Olav said, “Every Norwegian woman and man bears in his consciousness, the incomprehensible tragedy which has ■ taken nlace in the North Sea.” The Government Commission of Inquiry, headed by Judge Tor Nesheim and including a technical university , professor, a North Sea platform chief and an oil workers’ union representative, spent several hours aboard the leg but Judge Nesheim warned that the investigation could take months.

Phillips Petroleum, which leased the Alexander Kielland accommodation rig in the Edda field, is now considering the problems of salvaging the 10,000-ton structure, which may contain 76 bodies still missing.